


your heart's been aching

by ADreamingSongbird



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M, Vicchan Lives, Witch Katsuki Yuuri, fluff and adventure, makkachin is a fluffy dragon with toe beans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 13:00:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14379183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADreamingSongbird/pseuds/ADreamingSongbird
Summary: The new governor of South Province rules with an iron fist, ruining the lives of almost everyone living under his reign. What can a mere innkeeper's son do in the face of such great injustice?Well, he can take up his family's sword, set out with his familiar (the best puppy ever), and maybe even find and fall for the kingdom's missing prince along the way. Wait, what?





	your heart's been aching

**Author's Note:**

  * For [adjit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adjit/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY DUCKIE I LOVE YOU!!!!!

It is morning when they start to arrive.

Hasetsu is a small village, nestled in the gently rolling hills that lead down to the sea, and relies primarily on the water for life. That said, there is a thriving tourism industry based in the hot springs and their revitalizing earthen magic, and it’s not at all uncommon to have world-weary travellers leave town refreshed once again.

Which is why Yuuri doesn’t think much of the newcomers, at first. When his sister informs him that there are new guests in the inn, he just nods and continues helping his mother cook, casting spells to boil water for tea and guiding pots to stir themselves. It’s spring; there are always more guests as the weather warms and snow melts from the mountain paths. Travelers  always want to bathe in the springs.

But this trickle of travellers swells to a deluge, and by the end of the week, Hasetsu is all but overrun. The inn is booked, and so are all the other inns, and still more travellers— _refugees_ —stream through, needing a place to rest for the night, needing to get away from South Province, and sometime between scrambling to get enough bedding washed for each room and doing enough dishes to keep the restaurant running, Yuuri finds time to worry.

(Finding time to worry is a specialty of his.)

“What are they all running from?” he asks his mother, anxiously scrubbing greasy residues from a pan. South Province used to be a peaceful place; does the Queen know of whatever may be happening now? Has anyone dispatched a messenger to her castle? West Province is so far away…

Hiroko flicks her fingers, summoning water to rinse the pan as he passes it over. “I asked some of them last night while serving dinner. It seems the new governor, Lord Stepanychev, has decided to levy harsh taxes on the entire province to fund his new hunting grounds and estate, and those who can’t afford to pay have been forced out. Some were also forced from their homes because he seized the land for the hunting grounds.”

“Forced out?” He stares at her a moment, wide-eyed, and imagines the provincial governor’s army coming to his family’s door, swords drawn, to tell them they have to leave. It must be horrible. Anxiety starts churning in his gut; Phichit lives in South Province, and he hasn’t gotten a letter from him in weeks! “But why? I never thought the old governor would appoint someone this selfish or cruel.”

“I don’t think anyone did, dear,” his mother answers, not unkindly. “But what can we do? Unless someone manages to change his mind, nobody will be able to go back, and we’ll all have to live as best as we can. Power corrupts. Maybe in his youth Stepanychev was a good man. Who knows? We just have to do our best with what we have.”

Yuuri bites his lip. It’s still unfair, and it rankles, especially as he sees the aftermath—the people Stepanychev arbitrarily forced from their homes, trudging through Hasetsu, some staying a few days to relax in the hot springs while others march on through, only seeking a bed to rest for a night. “The Queen won’t let him get away with that, right?”

“I should think not,” Hiroko says, patting his hand. “She is a good woman, Yuuri. She will fix things. You don’t need to worry, okay?”

Unfortunately, Yuuri worries anyway.

And then his best friend—exhausted, shivering, and alone—turns up on their doorstep.

.

.

.

This is too much.

“No—no, hush,” Phichit says, waving a hand and smiling in a way that Yuuri knows is fake—too taut, stretched thin, scraped raw. “You don’t need to worry about me, Yuuri. Things will work themselves out, and I’ll find them again. It’ll be fine.”

“You’ve been saying that for two months now,” Yuuri argues, crossing his arms. “And you’re _miserable._ Don’t lie to me and say you’re not, and don’t tell me not to worry about you!”

Phichit blows out a breath and lets the too-bright smile falter, flicker, disappear. His shoulders droop, and he looks small, suddenly, like he’s just a lost child wandering in the woods, and more than ever, Yuuri wants to protect him. Wants to fight off every single horrible decision that led to him being here, alone, away from his family, with no way to find them, no way to go home.

But it’s not like there’s much he can do; all he can think of is to pull his best friend into a hug, because Phichit likes hugs and Phichit likes knowing that he’s appreciated. His family, he explained in a letter years ago, is full of very affectionate people, and it’s what he’s used to. It’s how he lives.

“What am I supposed to say, Yuuri?” His voice is flat, exhausted, and so, so _sad,_ wrenching at Yuuri’s heart. “That I’m tired of being sad and that I need to accept that this is my life now?”

“Well, I…”

Yuuri trails off. That’s _not_ what he wants him to say, but…

“It’s better than saying you aren’t sad at all,” he finally offers, lamely and stupidly, as he pats Phichit’s shoulder. “You know you can talk to me, if you need to, right?”

“Yeah, I know,” Phichit says, withdrawing with a tiny, more genuine smile. “You’re a good friend, Yuuri. I’ll be okay, though, so you don’t need to worry!”

“Yes I do,” Yuuri contradicts. “It’s worrying. That’s what I _do._ ”

It’s enough to make Phichit let out a burst of surprised laughter, and in this moment, Yuuri supposes that that’s enough.

(It’s enough. It has to be enough.)

(It isn’t.)

.

.

.

It comes up again, late one night, once everyone is asleep except him and Mari, cleaning the last of the tables and rinsing their rags and sponges as the moon climbs higher. Yuuri is quiet, his mind a brewing storm, as he wrings the last of the water out of his rag and uses a simple charm to dry it—so pensive that he doesn’t realize Mari has been watching him for several seconds until she clears her throat.

“So,” she finally says, and he glances briefly at her as he dismisses the charm. “You’re planning to run off, aren’t you?”

Yuuri’s head snaps up as he leaps to the defensive, mental alarm bells blaring. “What?! Where did you get _that_ idea?”

Mari considers him, head tilted to the side, and sighs softly. “You’re not satisfied letting things lie, Yuuri. Especially when they’re not right. Don’t tell me you haven’t been dreaming of going to South Province to fix things.”

Yuuri gapes, then closes his mouth, stung by how easily she reads him. “Maybe,” he finally admits, “but I’m no hero. I know that. There’s nothing I could do.”

He twists his hands in his shirt, lips pressed firmly together as he stares down at the floor, and waits for her to agree, waits for her to sigh in relief that he understands he’s not cut out for bravery and heroics and saving people. He’s just the innkeeper’s son, just Minako’s apprentice, just…

“Really?”

Yuuri looks up.

Mari has her arms crossed, one eyebrow raised, the absolute picture of skepticism. As she rakes a hand through her hair, she turns to walk away, waving a hand to indicate that he should follow. Confused, Yuuri does, trailing after her and wondering why she sounded genuinely doubtful that he’s no hero, as she leads him into the family quarters of the inn, to their little living room, and settles down on a cushion. Yuuri sinks down next to her, the glint of the sword hanging on the wall catching his eye.

Mari prods his shoulder, drawing his attention as she sighs and relaxes, finally sitting down after a long day. “You know, Okaa-san feels the same way you do.”

“What do you mean?” Yuuri frowns. His mother also dreams of travelling to South Province to tell Lord Stepanychev off for being selfish and displacing so many families? Dreams that somehow a lecture on morality will fix this?

“She wants Phichit to be able to go home, too,” Mari answers, voice dry. “All of us feel that way, Yuuri. This isn’t right, not just for him but for everyone else that got forced out of the city, and I don’t think it sits well with any of us. And while neither she nor Otou-san can really do anything about it…”

She trails off with a significant look, and Yuuri stares at her, noncomprehending, for several seconds, until realization hits him like a brick.

“You mean—none of you would oppose me going?”

Mari shakes her head, leans in a little closer, and places a hand on his shoulder, still warm from the water in the kitchen. “Okaa-san and I talked about this, too,” she says, winking conspiratorially. “Phichit can’t go back in protest because he’s _from_ South Province. But if someone who’s from East goes… the worst Stepanychev could legally do is force you out of South again, rather than arrest you. That’s the way our law works, so if only there was someone from East who could handle that trip… oh, but Yuuko and Takeshi have the babies now, and Okaa-san and Otou-san are too old for travel, and I have to help them with the inn, so…”

Yuuri gapes at her incredulously as realization crashes over him like a breaking wave, and slowly, slowly, he starts to grin. “You’re serious. You’re serious, oh my god, okay—okay, yes, I’m going, I’ll go, I—I should pack—”

Mari laughs and squeezes his shoulder, holding him in place as he tries to scramble to his feet. “Calm down, little brother. Sleep now. Tomorrow, we will all talk about it properly, and then you can pack, and _then_ you can go. You don’t want to just disappear without telling Minako you’re not coming to the studio for a while, do you?”

Yuuri blinks.

Blinks again.

Swallows hard.

“No,” he agrees, sitting back. “No, I don’t.”

Mari laughs. “I thought you might agree,” she says, running a hand through her hair. “Okay. We should sleep. I just wanted to tell you we’re behind you.”

Yuuri ducks his head, suddenly bashful for ever doubting them, and nods. “Thank you, nee-chan.”

Mari ruffles his hair. “You’re welcome, kiddo. Now let’s go to bed.”

.

.

.

Yuuri leaves his family home at dawn, three days later, with a magical pack full of lovingly-prepared food and other supplies, and also (at his mother’s teary insistence) the sword, strapped to his side. Vicchan, the world’s best familiar, sits by his feet as he bids his parents farewell.

Phichit is tearful and so, so grateful, hugging him like a limpet until Hiroko has to gently pry him off, and Yuuri has to wipe his own eyes, too. It’s going to be a journey; he won’t be home for a month, at the very least.

“See you later,” he finally manages, trying and not quite managing to smile. “I’ll be home soon, okay?”

“Okay,” Mari says. She’s the only one still outside in the rapidly brightening daylight, and once again, she reaches out to ruffle his hair. “Good luck, squirt. See you soon.”

Yuuri finally turns away, heart heavy with determination, and starts walking.

.

.

.

Lord Stepanychev, it turns out, lives in an already lavish manor, surrounded by lush green trees and stone walls. Its grounds sprawl out over the hills around the city; a segment of the city is blocked off and guarded by uniformed soldiers. Yuuri keeps his head down and follows the road to the inn—the only inn still open, apparently—and tries not to wince at the exorbitant price for a bed. He’s sure it’d be more reasonable if Stepanychev wasn’t levying such unfair taxes on those allowed to remain here.

This bed isn’t as comfortable as his blankets at home. He sleeps well nonetheless, tired from a two-week journey, and doesn’t wake until midmorning.

When he finally gets to the manor, the soldiers guarding its entrance give him dirty looks, but to his relief they don’t draw swords. The one on the right addresses him first. “Stop there, stranger! What do you want?”

“I need to speak with the governor,” Yuuri answers. “Is he available?”

“You can’t just waltz right in and demand an audience,” the one on the left says, snorting derisively. “You have to wait your turn. Let me guess, you’re gonna beg him to lower the taxes because your father is dying and you can’t afford medicine?”

Yuuri stares, flabbergasted. “No, my father is fine,” he answers stiffly, a second late, because this man somehow sounds like that kind of plight doesn’t matter and wouldn’t sway him, and that’s utterly ridiculous. “But I do need to speak with him. What’s the protocol?”

“Is this about the taxes?” the guard returns.

The one on the right sighs. “Leave off him, Harold, let him go plead his case. Look, though, kid—Lord Stepanychev is probably gonna say no, if you’re gonna ask him to lift the tariffs or the taxes or return seized property. You’re not the first one to ask that.”

Despairing slightly, Yuuri squares his shoulders nonetheless. Maybe he’s not the first, but maybe he can be the last. If nobody tries, nobody will succeed, right? That’s what Phichit would say, at least, and he’s doing this for Phichit. He’s not gonna turn around and go home just because of some pessimistic guards.

“I still want to see him,” he persists. “What’s the protocol?”

The guard on the left, Harold, sighs deeply. “Alright,” he says. “Fine. Come this way.”

And that’s how Yuuri finds himself in a sitting room—a receiving room? Is that the term?—waiting on Lord Stepanychev to deign to grace him with his presence. According to the butler that the guards passed him off to, Lord Stepanychev has been enjoying himself playing cards with a cousin, and isn’t expected to be too long, but Yuuri is still growing impatient and twitchy. Why does he need to ask this man to be decent? He shouldn’t need to beg and grovel to make someone see that ruining hundreds—thousands!—of people’s lives is wrong.

The sound of raised voices reaches his ears and then falls silent just as quickly as it came, ending with an abruptly-slammed door. He shifts in his chair, uncomfortable and uncertain.

The door opens then, and Lord Stepanychev sweeps in, a cape flowing from his shoulders. He’s not the tallest man, dressed in red with chin-length brown hair, and as he settles himself comfortably across from Yuuri, he smiles a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

Yuuri’s discomfort grows.

“So, little peasant,” Stepanychev greets, and Yuuri bristles. “I’m told you’re visiting from East Province, hm? Well, I’m in a good mood. What is it you want of me?”

Yuuri takes a deep breath, lets it out, and curls his fingers into his robes. Then he looks up and meets the Lord’s eyes. _He’s just a person,_ he realizes, just a person like anyone else, and that—that makes everything even more appalling. “You should give people their land back, let them live comfortably, and stop exploiting everyone in your jurisdiction.”

Stepanychev _laughs._

Yuuri’s jaw tightens, and the unease churning in his gut grows stronger. He does not like this man, he does not trust this man…

“Oh, how naïve you peasants are,” Stepanychev says, smug and assured in a way that makes Yuuri want to punch him. The desire surprises him—he’s never considered himself a violent person before, in any capacity—but the sheer… the sheer indifference toward the suffering he’s caused makes him _furious._ “I can’t do that, little—ah, I didn’t catch your name! What was it?”

Yuuri tries not to glare. “Yuuri.”

“Right. Little innocent Yuuri. Now, I wouldn’t expect a commoner like you to understand this of course, but the world of politics and court life is a layered and complex one, you see. South Province has grown so complacent! Small towns, nothing important to speak of past agriculture and some tourism along the coast. That’s not enough to gain the Capital’s favor, Yuuri! I want to make this place _the_ destination for visiting nobles. They’ll see our revamped city, our hunting grounds, and they’ll want to come vacation here!”

Yuuri is failing. He’s definitely glaring at this point.

“Nobles love to hunt, you know,” Stepanychev adds, clearly pleased with himself. Yuuri wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. “But we need to have facilities good enough to attract them! And once we do, and once they love South, the Queen herself will look upon my house with favor. It will be grand! So, no, sorry, no can do, little peasant.”

Yuuri takes a deep breath, holds it, and lets it out very slowly, counting to ten in his head. Magic wants to burst out of him in sparks and lights and helpless, righteous anger, but he knows he can’t let it, no matter how much his skin itches. He just stares daggers into the wood of the little table between them until he thinks he can speak.

“I won’t accept that,” he finally says, surprised at how steady his voice comes out.

Stepanychev looks surprised, then laughs again, lounging in his seat. “Sorry, I must have misheard. It sounded like you were trying to tell me what to do! Imagine that, a filthy little commoner brat, no doubt born from the bowels of the slums, trying to tell _me_ what to do. Wouldn’t that be funny?”

His voice turns venomous and biting, full of malice, and Yuuri snaps his gaze up to glare defiantly into his green eyes.

“You didn’t mishear,” he repeats, a little louder, a little firmer. “I said, I won’t accept that.”

Stepanychev narrows his eyes at him. “Do you need to have a look at my dungeons, Yuuri? Do you need to know what happens to those who aren’t faithful and respectful in my land?”

“You can’t touch me,” Yuuri snaps, though he _is_ a little afraid that Stepanychev would be willing to kill him just to hide any evidence that might impede his stupid attempt to rise to power. “I’m not from South, and if I don’t return home soon, my family is ready to send to the Capital and tell them where, exactly, I went missing.”

Stepanychev glowers darkly, all levity gone from his face. “You little bastard. I’ll just throw you out, then, if you don’t hold your insolent little tongue.”

“Fine!” Yuuri glares right back, so angry he doesn’t think to keep quiet. “Go right ahead! But if you think the Queen will be fine with you causing misery to so many of her people, you’re a fool. This won’t win you her favor.”

“What do _you_ know about the Queen?” Stepanychev’s face flushes red in rage, and his voice rises to a shout as he stands and stabs a finger at Yuuri, who flinches back before standing too, just as mad. “You don’t know anything! How _dare_ you speak so rudely to me—little pest! The only way I’m changing _anything_ in this province is if you find Prince Nikiforov himself and bring him back here! Get out!”

“Oh, so you can marry him and get directly into the royal family?” Yuuri barks out a humorless laugh, fists sparking slightly at his sides. “Fine! You know what? Maybe I will!”

Head held high, he turns on his heel, storms out of the receiving room, and slams the door behind him with a satisfying _thud_.

_“Guards!”_ he hears Stepanychev screech, muffled. “Seize that insolent brat and throw him in the dungeon—now! Guards! _Guards!”_

Oh.

Well, that doesn’t sound good.

Righteous anger gives way to a sharp stab of fear in the pit of his stomach, and Yuuri frantically scans the hallway and runs in what he thinks was the direction he came from. Hopefully, he can get out of here before he’s spotted; he was forced to leave the family sword with some guards before being allowed to enter the receiving room, and he doubts he’ll be able to steal it back—guilt gnaws at him even as he runs—but he still has his magic, if he has to fight his way out.

Vicchan is back there, with the sword. Fuck, fuck! If Vicchan—no, Vicchan can sense his fear right now. He must be coming to find him. He’ll go to the courtyards, and Vicchan will be there. He has to. He _has_ to.

He hopes to dash through the corridors and just make a break for the outer wall, using a wind spell to leap over and run faster. He hopes to get into town and disappear. He hopes to head back home and—

Instead, someone grabs his wrist.

He cries out in surprise and horror as he’s yanked roughly to the side, pulled into a small stony corridor, and forced into complete darkness.

“Easy now,” an unfamiliar voice says, even as the pressure on his wrist vanishes. Yuuri stumbles away from it, witch-fire flickering up in his palm, and his back hits a wall as it illuminates a tall man in front of him, lightly armored with a sword in his hand and a spear strapped across his shoulder. He’s dressed like a guard, but fancier—

“Oh, god,” Yuuri whispers, stumbling back along the wall. He can’t figure out where the door is—how did this man get him in here? There must be a secret door somewhere, there has to be a latch, a switch, something…

“Oh, dear, you poor thing,” the _captain of the guard_ says, shaking his head. “Like a little scared puppy! I’m not going to hurt you, don’t worry. I want to help. My name is Christophe. What’s yours?”

“I—I’m Yuuri,” Yuuri says, still not trusting him. “Let me go, I’m not from South Province!”

“Here,” Christophe says, and hands him the sword. Yuuri blinks, only now realizing that it’s _his_ sword, the family sword, still safely in its scabbard, and he lets the witch-fire float in a bubble next to his shoulder as he fumbles to belt it around his waist again. There’s a sudden yip, a yip Yuuri would know anywhere, and Vicchan is suddenly pawing at his feet, begging to be picked up.

Yuuri scoops him up and kisses his head, heart thundering with relief. The guards made Vicchan wait with the sword, but… oh, thank god. “Good boy,” he breathes, letting Vicchan lick his chin. “Good boy, good boy, good boy.”

Christophe gives him a moment or two longer, then clears his throat. “This is a secret passage. They won’t be looking for you in here. I’ll show you the way out.”

Yuuri gapes at him as Vicchan settles against his shoulder and noses at his cheek. “You’re the captain of the guard, though!”

Christophe raises an eyebrow, almost amused. “Oh, darling. I _was,_ until about twenty minutes ago. I just resigned.”

Suddenly, things make more sense—the raised voices earlier, the reason Christophe is disobeying an order—and Yuuri’s world clicks a little more into place. “So… you’ll help me? Why?”

“Because,” Christophe says, drily, “Sergei Stepanychev has a head so far up his own ass that he could go shove a rusty pike all the way up and it _still_ wouldn’t reach.”

Yuuri winces and feels his face flush red. “Um. Interesting… image.”

Christophe winks. “Ah, thank you for appreciating it! He didn’t, when I told him.”

Yuuri gapes. “You _told_ him that? To his face?”

Christophe shrugs and starts to lead him down the corridor, striking a match and lighting a lantern as he does so. Yuuri, feeling a little redundant, extinguishes his witchfire. “I _did_ go in with the intent to resign. I figured I might as well go out with a bang! And since there’s no way in _hell_ I’m banging him, this was the best solution.”

“Wow,” Yuuri says, faintly. “They told me he was playing cards.”

“Oh, no,” Christophe snorts. “He was fuming and made himself feel better by firing me and telling me to get the hell off his premises, which is exactly what I wanted.”

“So that’s why he was so smug.” Yuuri huffs, irritated all over again at the memory, and then glances over his shoulder. “But the other guards all follow him…”

“Only because he keeps their salaries,” Christophe says. “I don’t blame them. I was going to leave the province and search for work elsewhere because I got so fed up, but many of them have families. Moving is harder. They have security so long as they pay him the lip service.”

He shrugs and keeps walking, and Yuuri follows, biting his lip.

“So! Finding Prince Nikiforov,” Christophe continues. “Were you serious about that?”

Yuuri bites his lip harder, until he almost tastes blood. “Uh…”

On the one hand, going home to admit that he failed would leave a bitter taste in his mouth forever. And petitioning the Queen would take _ages,_ and there’s no guarantee the letter would even reach her; it would have to go through councils and bureaucracy in her government, probably, and after seeing how nobles can be in the interests of power, Yuuri doesn’t know if he trusts that. So if finding a prince who’s been missing for five years, despite the kingdom’s best efforts to find him, is the only other option…

He might be about to make the stupidest decision of his life, but so be it. Yuuri squares his shoulders, lifts his chin, and says, “Yes.”

“Oh, fabulous,” Chris says. “I’d love to throw this idiot in the mud, and you look like you could use someone who knows his way around a spear, if you know what I mean—”

Yuuri shrieks into his hands. _“What?”_

“Oh, wow, Yuuri! I’m so flattered!” Chris winks. “I just meant you don’t hold that sword like you can use it, and questing can be a dangerous job, but if you’re _offering_ —”

“No! No, no, no, definitely not!”

“Oh, alright. Just let me know if you change your mind.” Chris grins at him, and Yuuri starts to wonder what in the world he’s just gotten himself into. Is it too late to change his mind about this questing business? Maybe he should just go home after all!

(No, he can’t, not until he does _something_ to help Phichit come home. That’s the best way any of them can think of to find his family, and Phichit needs to see his family again.)

“Uh…”

Christophe laughs. “I’m joking, Yuuri darling, don’t worry. I _am_ a knight, you know, even if I served more as a captain of the guard. We’re chivalrous folk.”

“Okay,” Yuuri agrees, a little dubiously, and follows him through the dark.

.

.

.

_Dear Mari, Phichit, Okaa-san, and Otou-san,_

_I think I made a very stupid decision, but I’m fine, I promise. I don’t know when I’ll be home, but it won’t be for a while. I will try and send you more letters, but I don’t know when I will be able to. I am… looking for Prince Nikiforov. Lord Stepanychev says that’s the only thing that’ll get him to change his mind, so I am going to do it. Sorry this letter is so short, he also says he wants to arrest me on sight, so I don’t have a lot of time to stay in the city._

_Lots of love, and please don’t worry about me,_

_Yuuri (and Vicchan!)_

.

.

.

“So, Yuuri,” Chris begins, leaning over as Yuuri exits his magical trance. It’s growing late on their fifth night into the wilderness, and the sky is streaked with pink and purple, bordered by dark lumps that grow larger as they head toward the northern mountains. “You _do_ know where you’re leading us, right?”

“Well,” Yuuri says, puffing out his cheeks. He’s tired. “My scrying spells are giving me a definite direction, so… yes?”

Chris frowns. “You think people haven’t tried scrying spells before?”

Yuuri just shrugs. He doesn’t have a better idea, and judging from the answering shrug, he doesn’t think Chris does either.

.

.

.

“What if I _don’t_ know where I’m taking us?” Yuuri wails, dropping his head into his hands. It’s early autumn and they’ve made it to the mountains, but it’s slow going and the weather is starting to get cold. If they aren’t careful, they might end up marooned out here with no way to survive the winter. Yuuri knows spells that would keep them warm, but he doesn’t know how to hunt or trap, and he’s starting to seriously worry. “What do we _do?”_

Chris sits down next to him, places a reassuring hand on his shoulder, and sighs. “We’ll figure it out from there, Yuuri. Your spell might not lead us to the Prince, but it _is_ leading us somewhere. Maybe it’ll be a clue, maybe not, but—look. Worst case scenario, we just go back to your parents’ place, okay?”

Yuuri sighs. He misses home so much it’s a physical ache in his chest when he allows himself to think of it; he hasn’t written in months. “Yeah. If we can make it out of these mountains.”

“Don’t worry.” Chris pats his head. “Going down will be easier than coming up.”

“I hope so,” Yuuri mutters, staring into the depths of the fire. “Why can’t the prince just find _us?”_

“Wouldn’t _that_ be nice,” Chris says, snorting, and they lapse into a companionable silence as the stars emerge from the last of daylight’s glimmers and slowly drift overhead.

.

.

.

Yuuri is unbuckling the sword from his belt, exhausted, when Chris taps his shoulder. “You really don’t know how to use that thing, do you?”

Yuuri puffs out his cheeks and crosses his arms. It’s kind of dumb that he’s carrying around a sword when he doesn’t know a thing about it other than that it’s pointy. “So maybe I’m more of a magic guy than a swordy one…”

Chris laughs, but luckily not in a way that makes Yuuri feel like he’s being laughed _at._ Besides, Chris is the captain of the guard—or, uh, the former captain of the guard, so if anyone is allowed to laugh at him for not knowing swords, it’s probably Chris.

“I could teach you a thing or two, if you wanted,” Chris offers, raising an eyebrow. “I prefer spears, if you know what I mean—”

Yuuri squawks. “Christophe!”

“—but I know swords pretty well, too. So, if you want to learn…”

Yuuri gives him a scandalized look for the bad joke, but learning to use his sword so it stops being dead weight is _probably_ a good idea, so he nods. “Yeah, I guess so. We can maybe do that tomorrow?”

Chris grins. “Of course! I can teach you how to do some very effective thrusts.”

“ _Christophe!”_

.

.

.

The trance is a lot less clear today.

Yuuri tries desperately to feel for the direction it’s telling him he needs to follow, but something about the magic feels fuzzy, blurry, and indistinct, not like that sharp tug to the north he felt before. It’s like an ambient, soft feeling, more like floating in a hot spring than feeling the current of a river, and he almost wants to despair. How could it have led him this far only to fail now? Is this what happened to everyone else who tried to search for the lost prince?

_What did he do wrong?_

Things were fine yesterday. They had a direction even this morning! But after passing through that weird tiny cave through the mountainside—weird, because Chris insisted it wasn’t there until Yuuri physically pulled him into it—there has been nothing. What _happened?_

Taking a deep breath, he tries to focus again, reminding himself that panicking won’t help him concentrate. He also reminds himself, again, that there’s no guarantee they’ll find the prince alive; the last anyone heard of him was that five years ago, he threw himself in the way of a curse blasted at his mother, and though he survived, he vanished by the next morning. Why he’d be hidden away in the mountains, Yuuri has no idea. It’s completely likely that—

Distantly, he hears boots crunching through the snow and Chris’s voice, and he pulls himself back to his body, reluctantly abandoning the trance. If Chris has returned from foraging for some kind of dinner, he’ll need to help cook, and if Chris is talking to him…

…except, he realizes, hearing a second voice, he _isn’t._

Magic still fuzzy in his head, he sits there as the voices grow closer. Chris is saying something about—oh, he’s talking about Sergei Stepanychev. Who is he talking to…?

Footsteps stop just a few yards away, and the new voice says, “Oh, _hello._ Christophe, who’s _this_ delightful little thing?”

“What?” Christophe sounds startled, hurrying closer. “Oh—that’s Yuuri, my travelling companion, I told you about him—hey, leave him be, he’s doing his witch thing… wait. Yuuri? Yuuri…”

Yuuri belatedly realizes that his eyes are still closed, he’s still wrapped in a heat-charmed blanket, and that he probably looks like he’s fast asleep. He opens his eyes and sees Chris and… an unfamiliar man standing over him, even as the residual magic floating through his mind starts to sing.

“Prince Nikiforov,” he breathes.

Viktor Nikiforov, missing crown prince and rightful heir to the throne, waves a hand, his long, silver hair billowing like a stream in the wind. Yuuri stares at it for a long moment. He’s heard that the royal family all have pale silvery hair like this, a gift from the fae if the legends are true, but he never realized how lustrous it would be.

“Hello!” Prince Nikiforov greets, his smile and voice both sharp. “So _you’re_ the one who walked right through all my wards. How the hell did you do it?”

Yuuri blinks.

Blinks again.

“Um,” he says, and then gulps. “I have no idea?”

“Oh, wonderful,” Prince Nikiforov sighs. “So I have no way of knowing if they’ve just broken or if you’re a… special case. Well, I suppose you both better come with me; I have food, and it’s going to snow soon, by the looks of things. If you see a dragon, don’t you _dare_ touch her, except to pet her; her name is Makkachin, and she is a darling. Come on, come on, let’s go!”

Yuuri exchanges glances with Chris. “What… is going on?”

“Oh,” Chris says, grinning a little sheepishly. “Well, Yuuri, you were right! You led us right into his hidden valley. You did great! He found me hunting.”

Yuuri rubs his temples. This is not at _all_ what he expected. (Nobody told him the prince was going to be this beautiful, either.) “I… okay. Okay. You know what? Okay. I think I just need… a nap. My brain is fuzzy. Where’s Vicchan—oh,” and as his blanket wiggles in his lap, his dog pokes his little wet nose out and licks his chin. “You were asleep. Sorry.”

“How _cute!”_ Prince Nikiforov exclaims. “Can I hold him?”

“Only when we’re somewhere warm,” Yuuri warns. “He doesn’t like the cold.”

As if to accentuate his words, snow begins to fall from the grey sky. Quickly, he and Chris pack up their camp and hurry after Prince Nikiforov.

.

.

.

The prince leads them to a stone tower, clearly built by magic if its unnaturally-smooth exterior is anything to judge by, and Yuuri tries not to stare or make any sudden moves as he pulls his hair into a messy bun, walks up to a snoozing dragon curled up near its base, and pats its fuzzy snout.

“Makkachin!” he coos. “Who’s my good girl? Aww, yes, that’s right, it’s you…”

The dragon nuzzles its—her?—enormous head into his belly and grunts softly, wiggling in place, and then shifts her dark eyes to Yuuri and Chris. Yuuri swallows hard. She could probably eat him in one bite if she wanted to. Well, maybe two—she’s not _that_ huge—but her gaze is both piercing and deep.

“Come here,” Prince Nikiforov says, and Chris steps forward, Yuuri trailing hesitantly. “No, no—not you, Christophe, she doesn’t generally take to people very quickly, so just Yuuri. Come here. I want you to meet Makkachin.”

Yuuri gawks. “Why me? If she doesn’t like people—”

“Because,” Nikiforov explains, a little impatient, “you walked right through my wards, and I want to know what she thinks of you.”

“Can’t she judge me from a few yards away?”

Nikiforov laughs merrily. “Oh, Yuuri, you know if she wanted you dead, a few yards wouldn’t matter, right? Don’t worry, she’s a gentle girl, aren’t you, Makka-Makka-chin?” He scratches under the dragon’s chin, and she closes her eyes and sighs in contentment. “Come on, Yuuri, we don’t have all day…”

He _should_ have expected the prince to be an imperious type. Sighing, Yuuri hesitantly steps forward, boots crunching in the light dusting of snow, and holds out a tentative hand, glancing to Prince Nikiforov to see if he’s doing it right. He nods encouragingly, abandoning his scratches, and Makkachin opens her eyes and looks directly into Yuuri’s soul, and he almost dies on the spot.

Makkachin butts her nose into his palm.

“Aww!” Prince Nikiforov clasps his hands together. “She likes you!”

“Huh,” Yuuri breathes. He didn’t realize Makkachin’s snout would be so warm. Maybe it’s because she’s a fire-breather?

“Wait.” Now Prince Nikiforov frowns, rubbing his chin in thought, and Yuuri nearly flees, wondering if he’s done something wrong, except… Vicchan wriggles in his coat again, pokes his nose out, and to Yuuri’s horror, he _licks Makkachin’s snout._ “She likes you. Why in the world would she already like you? She doesn’t always…”

“Vicchan,” Yuuri hisses. Makkachin blinks at Vicchan and very, very carefully lifts one enormous foot (paw?) from the ground, and Vicchan yips at her, ignoring Yuuri and wriggling precariously enough that Yuuri is scared he’s going to fall out of the coat pocket he’s in. “Vicchan!”

Makkachin very gently pats Vicchan’s head with the pad of her paw.

“Oh my god,” Yuuri breathes.

Makkachin continues stretching, and this time very gently pats Yuuri’s head, too.

Chris tries to disguise a laugh as a cough, and fails very miserably. Yuuri tentatively rubs his thumb over Makkachin’s brow ridge, and she rumbles softly, butting her head further into his hand.

“What the hell,” Prince Nikiforov mutters. “She _really_ likes you. Here—”

And he takes Yuuri’s hand, lays his hand over it, and demonstrates how to stroke Makkachin’s brow ridges in just the way she likes. His hand is warm, too, and very soft, and Yuuri knows his face is flushing even as he tries to focus on the _dragon_ under his hand. A real, actual dragon. That could eat him if she wanted, but… is actually kind of cute?

Makkachin lets out a soft _whuff_ of contentment and nuzzles Yuuri’s arm and side, and he’s startled into a laugh. Okay, she’s really cute.

Prince Nikiforov eventually leads them both inside, letting Makkachin go back to her nap, though she paws at Yuuri again before letting them leave, and Chris shakes his head, clearly amused. “Who would’ve known you were a dragon charmer,” he mutters, lightly elbowing Yuuri’s ribs, and Yuuri puffs out his cheeks.

“Not me?”

Prince Nikiforov makes some tea, sets out three bowls of hearty stew (and some meat for Vicchan), and gestures to some seats around his kitchen table. It’s nothing grand, not like one would expect of a prince, but then again, Yuuri supposes, a runaway prince probably can’t take all his valuables with him. If… he’s a runaway at all. Which he _seems_ to be, if he’s content to be alone with a dragon for his only company, and put up wards to keep others out…?

“So,” he says, blue eyes piercingly bright. “What brings you two all the way to my valley? I don’t suppose you were sent to bring me home, were you?”

“No! I—we need your help,” Yuuri says, biting his lip. “Please, Prince Nikiforov, it’s—”

“Oh, none of that.” Prince Nikiforov waves a dismissive hand. “Call me Viktor. I gave up that title years ago, Yuuri.”

“Viktor,” Yuuri repeats, ducking his head and staring into his bowl. It feels odd to call a prince by his given name, but then again, it makes this whole thing feel a little more real. “Please, we need help.”

“What kind of help?” Viktor asks neutrally, his smile still sharp.

Chris, thankfully, speaks up, saving Yuuri from having to fumble through an awkward and stupid explanation like _I said some dumb things and went on a quest out of spite but um please come with me anyway?_. “A governor recently passed away, and his heir is, frankly, a piece of shit. He’s exploiting all the citizens of South Province, forcing many of them from their homes and heavily taxing others so he can make a lavish hunting resort for nobility to enjoy. He wants to use it to gain influence in your mother’s court.”

“Hmm.” Viktor sips his tea thoughtfully. He might say he has given up the title of a prince, but Yuuri can still see it clear as day in his posture, from the upright and confident way he sits to the carefully poised, elegant way he moves, even for something as mundane as lifting a teacup. “And what does that have to do with me?”

“I asked him to change it back so my friend could see his family again, and he said the only way he’d do it is if the missing prince himself came in with me and told him to do it,” Yuuri blurts out. “So… I told him fine, I’d find the prince, and, um. Here I am?”

Viktor raises both his eyebrows, still painfully elegant, but then his formal façade cracks into a grin. “Spite is a powerful motivator, I see.”

Yuuri hangs his head, a little ashamed, but not really. They’re so close… if Princ— _Viktor_ doesn’t want to come back with them, he doesn’t know what he’ll _do._

Chris just laughs. “Yes, you could say it is. But we’re here because we can’t fix this on our own, and I’m _sure_ you know what a cesspool court is. I don’t doubt that the Queen would fix this if she could, but whether all the bullshit would even let it get through to her, I don’t know.”

Viktor sips some more tea and delicately blows on a spoonful of stew, chews and swallows, and finally says, “Hm.”

Yuuri’s heart sinks.

“Please?” he asks, not above begging, because god dammit he’s come _this far,_ and if he has to turn back in failure _now…_

“I still don’t understand how that let you through my wards,” Viktor finally says, turning the full force of that piercing gaze on him. “You were scrying for me, and you just… found me?”

“Um.” Yuuri bites his lip again—it’s very chapped from the cold at this point, and it keeps bleeding—and nods. “Yes?”

“Are you a trained sorcerer?”

Yuuri shakes his head quickly. “I come from a family of witches. Not sorcery. Maybe—maybe that’s why?”

“No,” Viktor shakes his head. “Sorcery and witchcraft might be separate schools, but these wards should have kept out both. You wouldn’t be the first witch who’s tried to find me. You’re just the first who has.”

“I’m sorry?” Yuuri squeaks out.

Viktor laughs, turning to Chris. “Is he always so cute when he’s flustered?”

“Oh, definitely,” Chris drawls. “You should see what he looks like if you try to tell him he has a nice ass—”

“ _Chris,_ ” Yuuri groans, mortified. “Not in front of—” He flaps a hand at Viktor, who lets out another charming laugh. “Why are you so shameless!”

“You must have stolen all my shame,” Chris teases, and Yuuri favors him with a supremely dirty look.

“I didn’t get a good look at it, I confess,” Viktor sighs. “Yuuri, be a dear and stand up so I can see?”

Yuuri gapes at him, and instincts from a long-time friendship with Phichit take over as he grabs the nearest napkin and flings it at him. “No!”

Wait, he just threw a napkin at _the prince—_

Viktor catches it, laughing, and throws it back. “Oh well,” he says, as it catches a flabbergasted Yuuri in the face and falls into his lap. “It was worth a try.”

Yuuri blinks.

Vicchan nudges at his foot then, wanting morsels of stew, and Yuuri shakes his head, leaning down to rub his fluffy ears. He doesn’t know what to make of this charming, poised prince with a laugh like silver and a terrible sense of humor. Is he even going to accompany them back home? Is…

“Oh, and I’ll think about coming with you two, by the way,” Viktor says lightly. “You must understand, coming out of hiding after so long is… a big decision. I’ll let you know what I think in the coming few days, but in the meantime, you’re welcome to stay here. Makkachin and I would both appreciate the company, I think, and I still want to understand you, Yuuri…”

“Me?” Yuuri squeaks. Why is he always the one they put on the spot? Is it because he blushes easily?

“Yes, you _are_ the one who walked through my spells, so, yes, you,” Viktor laughs, and Yuuri ducks his head, because of _course_ he meant he wants to understand the magic thing, not… not Yuuri himself. Right. Of course.

“Thank you,” Chris says. “That’s certainly very gracious of you. We’ll be sure to annoy you as long as you like, my friend.”

Viktor winks. “That’s what I like to hear.”

.

.

.

But the snow starts falling and doesn’t stop falling, and soon Makkachin’s heat is the only reason the tower doesn’t get buried in white drifts. Yuuri thinks anxiously of the treacherous paths and the passes they had to climb through to get here, and wonders how they’re ever supposed to get home now.

“Oh, we’re not going now,” Viktor answers, when he brings it up, and Yuuri is so startled by his easy self-assuredness that he almost misses the usage of _we._ “We’ll wait until spring. The snowmelt will make travel much easier. Until then, we can be here! Don’t worry, I have a nice greenhouse, and there’s plenty of game. Makka sometimes even hunts for me, if I ask nicely. You could try asking her, too, Yuuri!”

“Oh,” Yuuri says. “So you _are_ coming?”

Viktor shrugs lightly and nods. “I thought about it, and I figured I would rather take the chance than miss it. If I really don’t like how the kingdom is outside, I can always just disappear again.”

The idea is so bizarre that Yuuri bursts into laughter without quite realizing it, and quickly hides his face in his hands. “You’ll be the cryptid prince for ages, oh my god—he appears when he needs to tell someone off for being injust and then retreats back into the mountains—”

Viktor stares at him for a moment, and then he starts to laugh, too, shaking his head. Wisps of pale hair that have escaped from his ponytail frame his face, swaying with his movement, enchanting. “I’ll appear at a function here and there, tell Alexei his tie is an absolutely putrid shade of green, and leave again, only to show up later and shame Natalya for being so shameless as to go out in public after expressing those views on international trade laws, and then…”

“And you bring Makkachin with you,” Yuuri finishes, giggling. “They’ll tell stories to children: be good, or the prince and his dragon will appear to shame you!”

And maybe he leans a little closer than he realizes, sitting on the little stuffed couch, or maybe Viktor scoots over, but then Viktor’s hand is playfully ruffling his hair, and he’s laughing too. “Yes! And also don’t dress like a disaster of patterns on prints, or else he’ll have words for you!”

Yuuri, who is wearing a mixture of patterns and prints, lets out an indignant cry. “It’s _cozy!”_ he defends and swats his hand away, almost as if he’s with Mari or Phichit, and somehow Viktor just fits in so easily that he doesn’t even _notice_ how familiarly he’s acting with someone who grew up a prince. “And there’s a pocket on the inside of this coat that I sewed for Vicchan!”

“Oh, Yuuri.” Viktor shakes his head. “One of these days, I’ll get some _real_ fashion on you. And it’ll still have room for Vicchan.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Yuuri says, crossing his arms.

Viktor quirks an eyebrow. “Is that a challenge?”

Yuuri considers him for a moment. “Maybe.”

~

“Have you seen Viktor?”

Chris shakes his head, looking up from his knitting. It’s coming along surprisingly well; Yuuri never knew he knew how to make scarves and socks and hats just like that. “No,” he says, and glances out the window at the rapidly darkening, snowy sky. “You checked the greenhouse?”

“And his bedroom,” Yuuri nods. He counts off on his fingers as he adds, “And the kitchen, and my room, and yours, and the sitting room, and the library.”

Chris raises his eyebrows, now looking concerned. “You don’t think he’s outside, do you?”

“I don’t know where _else_ he could be,” Yuuri admits, shoulders slumping as he drums his fingers together fretfully. Viktor has lived here for years, and he’s a talented sorcerer. He could survive getting caught out in a snowstorm, if that’s what happened. And he probably knows this valley well enough that he knows how not to get caught, too. Maybe he just found shelter to hide and ride it out.

Chris sets the knitting aside and stands, crossing over to the window. “Should we go looking?”

Yuuri bites his lip. “I don’t know… I could cast heat charms and all, but I don’t know if—what if we get stuck somewhere, or we just lose our way back—well, I guess I could scry for it—but what if he comes back while we’re gone, or…”

“We could split up,” Chris says dubiously. “I can go look for him, and you can stay here.”

“No, that’d be ridiculous.” Yuuri shakes his head immediately. “Your armor would freeze you the second you walked out! If anyone’s better equipped to handle a snowstorm, it’s me. I can scry so I don’t get lost, and I can keep myself warm with charms, and…”

Chris frowns. “I don’t like the idea of having to just wait on both of you to come back…”

Yuuri blows out a breath. “How about… okay. I’ll go look right outside, like, around the tower? And if I don’t see him, I’ll come right back. I won’t go further, and—I’ll stay close enough that if I need help, I can signal Vicchan to come find you. Is that okay?”

Chris nods, slowly sitting back down. “Fine. Just be careful, Yuuri. I trust you know what you’re doing, but mountain snowstorms are harsh.”

Yuuri, who has lived in Hasetsu’s soft, temperate seaside hills all his life, pretends that he does indeed know what he’s doing, and nods smartly. “I will!”

He heads back downstairs, finds Vicchan dozing in front of the hearth, and pauses to kiss his head. Vicchan is a good familiar and a sweet boy, and he must sense Yuuri’s worry and unease, because he nuzzles into his arms and lets him hold him for a minute, and his warm, soft weight against Yuuri’s chest helps him remember to breathe. Viktor is probably fine, just off somewhere doing Viktor things. He’s probably just making a big deal of nothing.

Eventually, he puts Vicchan down and instructs him to stay with Chris, and then he dons his charmed cloak and boots and heads out into the cold.

It takes him a moment to adjust to the wind, snowflakes melting in his eyelashes, but he pushes forward, buffeted this way and that as he slogs through the snow and treks around the base of the tower. About halfway around, he stops—this is where Makkachin usually makes herself cozy, though she doesn’t like the cold, and for her comfort Viktor built a side little house that she nests into. Maybe he’s with her.

The path from the tower to Makkachin’s dragon-house is, at least, mostly clear of snow, presumably because of Makkachin, and he tentatively walks over. He’s never been here when the doors are closed; what’s the protocol to enter a dragon’s nest? Should he… knock?

Yeah, knocking sounds good. He knocks lightly, assuming she’ll hear over the wind.

Almost immediately, a strong, fuzz-covered tail pushes the large door out and open, and squinting against the sudden brightness from the fire she has burning, Yuuri sees Makkachin, curled up on her side, wings wrapped around herself. Her tail wraps around his arm and tugs him forward when he doesn’t move fast enough, and then lets go to close the door against the cold again, leaving him in close quarters with a dragon.

A friendly dragon, to be fair. A sweet dragon. A good dragon. She’s a good girl, and—

Makkachin keens, distraught.

“Oh—are you okay?” Yuuri asks, suddenly concerned. He’s never heard her make _that_ sound before, and as he hurries forward, Makkachin keens again. Yuuri rubs her head the way Viktor taught him, and she nuzzles into his touch but still seems anxious, whining, and then…

And then she unfurls her wings, and tucked against her soft belly, curled up and distressed, is Viktor.

“Makkachin,” Viktor breathes. “I didn’t—Yuuri. Hi. What… what are you doing here?”

Makkachin’s tail shoves Yuuri’s back, light enough not to hurt but hard enough to send him stumbling forward, and then her paws catch him and pull him into her soft fluff next to Viktor, and she wraps her wings around them both again. She’s soft, almost like a living blanket, and Yuuri blinks again in the dimness.

“Um. I… was looking for you?” he tries. “Is, um. Is Makkachin okay?”

Viktor lets out a deep sigh. He seems… exhausted, small, and sad; something about him reminds Yuuri of the way Phichit looked in the days before he left Hasetsu. “She’s just being a worry-wart. She’s fine.”

Yuuri accepts that, nods slowly, and asks his next question. “And are _you_ okay?”

Viktor hesitates. Makkachin rumbles softly, gently paws at him, and to Yuuri’s surprise, she uses one paw and pushes him directly into his arms, curling up around both of them as Viktor’s head smushes into his shoulder.

“Makka,” Viktor groans. “Stop that.”

“Viktor?” Yuuri asks again, more gently. He’s starting to put this together—Makkachin is worried about Viktor, Viktor is not okay, and Makkachin wants him to help. “You didn’t answer the question.”

Viktor goes still against his chest, and Yuuri awkwardly pets his back, hoping that’ll calm him down, help him relax. It seems to do the trick, because he lets out a shaky breath and finally says, “Today is my mother’s birthday.”

_Oh._

Heart suddenly aching in his chest, Yuuri hugs him properly, like he would hug Mari, or Phichit, or Yuuko. It’s been months since he’s seen his own mother, let alone _years,_ and Viktor has spent all the time since his disappearance almost entirely alone. Viktor tenses in his arms as if it’s unexpected, being held, being consoled, and that breaks Yuuri’s heart further. He might not know how to deal with missing princes or quests or tyrannical lords, but this? This he can do.

“You must miss her so much,” he murmurs, patting Viktor’s hair sympathetically. “Oh, Viktor. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Viktor tries to say, but Yuuri shakes his head.

“You don’t—it’s clearly _not,_ if you’re hiding and Makkachin is so worried about you,” Yuuri mutters, and Makkachin, hearing her name, rumbles again. She’s so warm that Yuuri is starting to regret his heat-charmed clothes. “But when we go back, you can see her again, right?”

Viktor shakes his head miserably.

That comes as a surprise, and Yuuri’s brow furrows. “Why not?”

“I’m cursed,” Viktor answers, his voice bleak, even as he finally relaxes into his arms. “I’m cursed, Yuuri. It’s why I left.”

Yuuri is quiet for a moment, and Viktor turns his face into his neck and tentatively wraps his arm around his waist. Makkachin brushes her wings over both of them.

“Can I ask—and you don’t have to answer, but… can I ask what the curse is?” Yuuri keeps his voice gentle, hands still, though Viktor’s hair is very soft and he kind of wants to run his fingers through it. “Maybe we can break it, or… I don’t know. Something.”

Viktor heaves a sigh, presses a little closer to him, and hesitates for a few heartbeats. Yuuri hugs him tighter, thinking of how nobody has hugged him in years, and waits. Finally, Viktor says, “A few years ago, there was a conspiracy in court to kill my mother. They got found out. There was a court sorcerer planning with one of the noble houses, and during the trial of the head of the house, the sorcerer’s assistant burst into the room and aimed the spell that was supposed to kill my mother at her, and fired. It was so sudden, there was no time, but… I managed to push her out of the way.”

“I know,” Yuuri murmurs. “That part—that part, at least, I know. Everyone knows you saved her, and then disappeared. Nobody knows _why._ ”

Viktor shakes his head wordlessly for a moment, then lets out a dry, brittle laugh. Makkachin shifts her wings to let in some more breathable air, huffing softly as she rearranges herself for maximum comfort. “The curse was engineered specifically to kill my mother,” he says. “They were smart about it. They didn’t want additional casualties if it went wrong. But someone intercepting it for her? They didn’t plan on that.”

A chill runs down Yuuri’s spine despite all the warmth surrounding him. Based on his limited knowledge of sorcery, he thinks he knows where this is going.

“So I absorbed the curse, and I felt fine,” Viktor continues. “But my mother—the closer she got to me, the sicker she would become. It sapped her life force, Yuuri. Being near me was literally killing her. She was sure we’d find a way around it, but…” He shrugs, as if feigning indifference can disguise the tension in his body, the pain in his voice. “I couldn’t bear to do that to her. So… I left. And so long as I’m cursed, I can’t return.”

“Oh, Viktor,” Yuuri breathes, hugging him tighter. There’s so much hurt in every line of Viktor’s shoulders, so much despair, and it’s painful, knowing that _this_ is the reason the prince disappeared. Suddenly every theory of him abandoning the throne to run off with a scandalous lover, or anything equally frivolous and selfish that Yuuri has ever heard, makes him angry, makes him want to defend the man in his arms from the entire world. Viktor is funny, kind, and brilliant, and he deserves to be able to go home, at the very least, but… he can’t.

“It is what it is.” Viktor shrugs again, bitter. “I don’t know how to break a curse like this. I’ve looked, and all I’ve found is some witchy mumbo-jumbo. There’s nothing in any library I’ve checked since I ran. I just gave up and came … here.”

“Well… witchy mumbo-jumbo is kind of my specialty,” Yuuri offers, finally giving in to the urge to stroke his hair. It’s soft and surprisingly thick, flowing around his fingers like silk, and Viktor relaxes against him, snuggling closer as he runs his fingers through it. “What was it?”

Viktor’s voice takes on a wry note. “Just—something about curses born of hatred being dispelled by love, or whatever.”

“Witches often do use spells powered by emotions and feelings,” Yuuri muses, then laughs softly, ducking his head. “This is probably a silly suggestion, but sometimes my teacher would talk about the power of true love’s kisses, you know, like… as a demonstration of love, that you can use energy to power spells from?”

“I didn’t know that,” Viktor says, thoughtful rather than dismissive like Yuuri was afraid he might be. “Yuuri? Could you teach me something about witchcraft some day?”

“I could,” Yuuri says, heart warmed by the thought, and then—an idea strikes him. Viktor is a good friend, trusting him like this, and Yuuri cares about him, and that’s enough for _something,_ so…

He strokes Viktor’s hair back from his face and presses a soft kiss to his forehead, lingering just long enough to touch his magic and think, _please—_

And it’s not _true love_ like Minako used to talk about, but it’s fondness. It’s fondness, concern, friendship, and the potential for more, the potential for real love, and Yuuri doesn’t know exactly what that fondness might translate to with a spell like this, but…

Viktor gasps sharply and jerks back. “What was _that?”_

Yuuri flushes. “Um—sorry, was that weird of me to do? I probably should have asked, I just—”

Viktor shakes his head, his eyes wide, and _goodness,_ they are so incredibly blue, up close like this. “No, the kiss is fine, it just—you shocked me? It felt like… like lightning or something! I don’t know. But it was _strange._ Did you do… what did you do?”

“I asked the curse to be nicer to you,” Yuuri says, bashful. “Sorry. I don’t really know if it even worked, or…”

Viktor’s eyes glimmer with emotion, and he crushes him in a hug.

“Thank you,” he breathes, burying his face in Yuuri’s shoulder and holding him tight enough that he can feel every line of them pressing together. “Thank you, nobody has ever—thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Yuuri hugs him back, willing his face to stop being so hot, and protests, “I don’t know if it did anything at all, it’s alright, really, I mean—”

Viktor shakes his head. “You _tried,_ ” he says. “That alone is worth… a lot.”

“Oh,” Yuuri says, kind of dumbly, and Viktor lifts his head and quirks a little smile at him. “Oh. Okay. Good?”

“Good,” Viktor agrees. He touches Yuuri’s cheek for a moment, tender but hesitant, and lets out a soft sigh. “Yuuri… from now on, call me Vitya?”

“Vitya,” Yuuri tries, and Viktor nods. Makkachin shifts again, and this time Viktor rubs her belly, humming fondly. “Vitya,” Yuuri tries again, and Viktor’s smile grows, just a little bit. “Okay. Vitya.”

Viktor’s smile turns soft and shy and luminous, like he can’t quite believe this is happening, and then he buries his face in Makkachin’s fluff. “Good girl,” he coos, rubbing her belly with both hands.

Yuuri, giving into curiosity, leans into her leg and lightly pokes the big paw beans on the pad of her foot, and she snorts, opening her wings to peer in at him.

Viktor chuckles. “I think that tickles her.”

“Oh,” Yuuri says, hopelessly charmed. “She’s so good.” _So are you,_ he thinks, but doesn’t say.

“She _is,_ ” Viktor says, and pulls him close again, as if he heard anyway.

.

.

.

Winter comes into its own with the solstice, and the nights are long, dark, and desolate, filled with either fresh snow or an endlessly vast sky, blanketed with glimmering stars. Chris grows restless, cooped up in the tower, while Yuuri pines for home; only Viktor seems content, and Yuuri figures that’s likely just because he’s used to this life. Still, Yuuri hates that he spends so much time wrapped in a blanket and cuddling with Vicchan and dreaming of the springs and their earthy-scented steam.

“I’m going stargazing,” Chris announces one evening, heading for the door with his adorable, newly-finished knit beret.

“Oh—do you want me to come?” Yuuri asks, looking up from the book he stole from Viktor’s library. It’s cold, and he doesn’t really want to go, but if Chris needs the company, he’ll do it.

But Chris shakes his head. “No offense, my dear,” he sighs, “but I’m afraid being cooped up around others all the time is taking a bit of a toll on me. I think I’d rather go alone tonight, if that’s alright with you.”

Relieved, Yuuri nods quickly. “Yes, of course! I understand. You can take my cloak, if you want, the one with the heat charm?”

“You can take Makkachin, too,” Viktor suggests, from the other end of the couch. “She likes going out at night sometimes. If you want, you could go check on her? She’s a good walking companion.”

Chris considers that, nodding, and smiles at them both. “Have a lovely night in—you’ll both probably be asleep by the time I get back. See you tomorrow, darlings!”

“Toodles,” Viktor sings as he leaves.

Yuuri returns to reading, Vicchan in his lap, and tries to focus on the sorcery basics in front of him. It’s interesting magic, based in logic and precision and _change_ rather than the guiding and shaping and emotions of witchcraft, but everything he reads just reminds him of how different it is from what he knows, and _that_ just reminds him of how far he is from home, and…

He sighs to himself, cradles Vicchan against himself so that he can feel his warmth and the rise and fall of his tiny chest, and reminds himself that this is a little bit of home, right here, and that after this is all over, after Viktor denounces Sergei Stepanychev and he and Chris leave Yuuri behind, he _will_ go home.

Another paragraph, another sigh. Basic sorcery includes the usage of a focus object, which can be disregarded but only when the caster is skilled enough, blah blah blah…

“Yuuri,” Viktor eventually cuts in, somewhere between amused and concerned. “Are you okay?”

Yuuri blinks owlishly and adjusts his glasses. “Of course? Why do you ask?”

One of Viktor’s elegant eyebrows rises just a fraction. “You haven’t turned a page in ten minutes, and you keep sighing. If it’s _that_ boring, you don’t have to read it—I won’t be offended, really.”

He’s teasing, now—that’s something different, ever since their evening spent in Makkachin’s embrace. He teased before, but never so familiarly, never so easily, never so _naturally._ It’s like by trying to help with his curse, Yuuri unlocked the right to call him _Vitya,_ and with it, he knocked down walls he barely even knew were there.

Suddenly, the reserved prince has all but vanished, replaced by a man with goofy and bright smiles who laughs at his own terrible jokes, who likes to talk about anything and everything if he feels like Yuuri is listening to him (and Yuuri always listens), and who _loves_ to be touched.

It’s been a bit of an adjustment, but a good one, and now Yuuri just mirrors the expression as he strokes Vicchan’s back. “Yes,” he deadpans, as best as he can. “I’m just incredibly bored after I pestered you all day to ask which book would be best to start with. So bored.”

Viktor laughs (bright, exuberant, lovely) and plucks the book from Yuuri’s lap and scoots over, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and pulling him against his side. “I knew that wouldn’t be it! Sorcery is so interesting—there’s no _way_ anyone would find it boring.”

“You’re a little biased, I think,” Yuuri mutters, not bothering to hide a smile as he lays his head on Viktor’s shoulder. He never really used to consider himself a touchy-feely person, but it’s just so easy with Viktor, and the way he always seems to light up when anyone shows him affection just… it’s good. It makes Yuuri feel good to see him like that. So now here he is, just as snuggly, so long as Viktor starts it.

(He tells himself he has to keep that rule in place—that he can’t get too accustomed to wrapping himself around Viktor the way Viktor likes to wrap around him, because eventually, he’s going back to Hasetsu, and there’s no way Viktor would want to stay in a small hot spring tourist town, and of course, he’s a _prince,_ and Yuuri is, well, not, and—and so, their time together is, well… limited.)

Viktor gives him an affectionate squeeze, laughs again, and says, “I might be, but that doesn’t mean I’m _wrong,_ Yuu-ri.”

That’s another thing. He’s beautiful—that, Yuuri has known since the day they met, with his broad shoulders and flowing silver hair and high cheekbones and strong jaw and—well. Anyway. He’s beautiful, but he’s sweet, too, and he’s so gentle with Vicchan and he has such a wonderful laugh, and on top of it all, he manages to say Yuuri’s name _just so._ Just differently enough to sound like something all his own, like a blessing rolling elegantly off his tongue, like a gift, like a treasure, and…

There are three things that Yuuri knows.

One. The day when they inevitably part ways is going to _hurt._

Two. Yuuri is falling for him, for this beautiful, selfless, sad prince, and he doesn’t think there’s any way he can possibly catch himself in time.

Three. He should be terrified. But he’s not. Perhaps that’s the scariest part.

“And you still haven’t answered my question,” Viktor adds, poking his cheek.

“I did!” Yuuri protests. “I said of course, that means yes I’m fine!”

“But you’re _lying,_ ” Viktor explains patiently, “which means it doesn’t count. So. What’s wrong?”

_I miss my family,_ Yuuri could say, or maybe _I’m falling in love with you and I’m terrified because I’m not scared,_ or even _I don’t want to let you go._ But all the words jumble together in his mouth into a sticky lump in his throat, and what comes out is just a pathetic little “I’m sad.”

“Ah, Yuuri,” Viktor murmurs, ruffling his hair. “I know. Do you want to tell me what’s making you sad?”

Yuuri seizes up in his embrace—that, he can’t do. There are things he can’t say, things he needs to keep to himself, because it’d be so selfish to ask Viktor to just stay in Hasetsu just for Yuuri’s stupid fantasies, and—

Vicchan plants his paws on his chest and licks his chin.

“Okay, okay,” Viktor cuts in, cheek leaning against his temple. “It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.”

Yuuri nods stiffly against his side. It takes him several seconds of grounding himself by running his hands through Vicchan’s fur, cradling him like a baby, to manage to relax into Viktor’s hold again. “I… sorry.”

Viktor shakes his head. “Don’t apologize.”

Yuuri bites his lip. “Oh. I, um, sorry…? Wait, fuck, sorr—no, dammit! Ugh!”

Viktor stares at him for a moment, and then a laugh bubbles out of his chest even as he tries to stifle it behind a hand, and his hair is in a messy bun falling around his face and he’s so charming that Yuuri’s heart skips a beat and forgets that it was trying to give him a hard time. “I—god, I shouldn’t laugh at you, I’m sorry, Yuuri, but—”

“Laugh away,” Yuuri murmurs breathlessly, watching him with wide eyes, and then Viktor pulls him into a proper hug, while Vicchan jumps down off the couch and trots out of the room.

“You’re just so cute,” Viktor sighs, patting his head. He sits back, considering, and finally takes Yuuri’s hands, casually, as if it doesn’t send sparks shooting through him, and says, “I know! If you’re sad, why don’t we come up with something to celebrate? An excuse to do happy things!”

“What kind of something?” Yuuri asks, furrowing his brows, and Viktor lets go of one of his hands (but not the other) to tap his finger to his lips in thought.

“Let’s make a fancy dinner,” he decides. “And I have some nice wine to go with it! Not a ton, but last time I visited a city I did buy a few bottles. I’ve been saving it for a good occasion! Let’s have a really good dinner and just… celebrate! The solstice is past, so the days are going to get longer, and then we’ll be able to go! That’s something worth celebrating, right?”

Winter’s end and spring’s thaw means the beginning of the end of their time together, but it also means getting closer to home again, means letting Phichit find his family again, so… it’s bittersweet, Yuuri supposes, and that’s better than just bitter. If their time together does have to end, they might as well make good memories.

“Yeah, it is,” he decides. “Okay, yeah. Let’s do it! Fancy dinner sounds good!”

Viktor cheers and all but hauls him off the couch, and they wind up in the kitchen with several options and lots to do. Yuuri starts chopping vegetables while Viktor kneads some dough into shape to make gnocchi, humming to himself.

“Yuu-ri,” he sings at one point, and Yuuri looks up, blinking blearily through onion-induced tears. “What’s home like?”

“Home?” Yuuri asks, sniffing loudly. “Um… my home? Or the capital city? Because I’ve never been—”

“No, no.” Viktor shakes his head. “Your home! Hasetsu. Tell me about your family! The town! What’s it all like?”

“Oh,” Yuuri says, and he ends up pouring his heart out to Viktor, telling him about Yuuko and Takeshi and the triplets, about Minako’s studio where he goes to practice both dance and witchcraft, about the inn and working with his parents and how all of them love magic and about how his mother’s cooking is the most amazing, ever, and about his childhood dreams and the hot springs and _everything._

They get the wine out early, too, and by the time everything is done cooking, they’re both a little buzzed already, laughing back and forth as they stir pans and check on the tart that Yuuri placed a layered heat charm on, to bake while they have their main course. Dinner is satisfying and filling and rich, and it feels so _intimate,_ just the two of them sitting across from each other at the table and playing footsie as they eat.

“I feel bad that Chris is missing this good food,” Yuuri says after they finish dessert. There are leftovers, but as his mother always says, nothing beats fresh food. Though maybe the amount of _pretty_ in Viktor’s face comes close. What’s better, food or Viktor’s face?

Hm. Yuuri considers Okaa-san’s katsudon, and mentally apologizing to Viktor, accepts that he knows the truth.

“It’ll still be warm when he gets back,” Viktor says, shrugging fluidly. He’s so _pretty,_ the way he moves and everything, and it’s super not fair. Yuuri sips more wine to make himself not stare at Viktor’s pretty shoulders and pretty face. “You did those charms! You’re so thoughtful.”

“It’s just because if I was Chris, I wouldn’t like cold food,” Yuuri says, wrinkling his nose. Viktor’s foot brushes his under the table again, and he giggles, downing the last of his wine and prodding back, and they spend a few minutes giggling back and forth as they try to pin each other’s feet down until Viktor smacks his knee into the underside of the table, and they figure maybe they should give it a rest.

Yuuri gets up, takes both of their plates, uses a quick spell to get the water in the sink to wash them off for him, and comes back to the table. Viktor is still sitting, though he starts to get up when Yuuri walks over; however, he’s just really pretty and Yuuri wants to appreciate him, so he pushes him back down.

“Yuuri?” Viktor asks. His face is pink. Probably from the wine—Yuuri knows he’s probably a little blushy too. That’s okay. “Wow…”

“Vitya,” Yuuri sighs, cupping his cheeks, and then sitting down in his lap, because while sober Yuuri thinks that he should keep his distance, sober Yuuri is dumb and there’s nothing wrong with some cuddling. “You’re _sooo_ pretty.”

“ _You’re_ pretty,” Viktor argues, hugging him. “You have such cute eyes, you know? So expressive. And a cute little nose! I have a really big nose. Yours is just… bump! That’s it!”

Yuuri wrinkles his (cute?) nose. “Your nose is cute,” he says, and boops it for good measure. Viktor’s hands are warm against his body, and sitting in his lap even in a dining chair is really, _really_ cozy. Well, maybe not the coziest it could be, because if Viktor lets go of him he’ll just slide off his lap onto the floor, but like… it’s good, and sober Yuuri is a dumbass.

“Your entire _being_ is cute,” Viktor argues, humming as he squeezes him close. “Yuu-ri… I wanna stay like this forever.”

Oh. That hits a nerve—the one that sober Yuuri was trying to protect, probably—and Yuuri wilts a little, deflating. “But… you’re gonna leave.”

“What?” Viktor shakes his head, looking up with big blue eyes. “No, why would I?”

“Because,” Yuuri sighs, “I’m just a dime-a-dozen hedgewitch from nowhere, and you’re…”

“I’m what,” Viktor says, and now his voice is flat. “I’m a prince, and therefore I have to go live in the castle? I’m a noble, and so I can’t possibly live in a small town? What am I? I can be whatever, Yuuri. I don’t have to be a prince if that’s not what you want. I can—”

“No!” Yuuri shakes his head furiously, enough that he nearly wriggles his way out of Viktor’s arms and to the floor. He catches himself by clinging to Viktor’s shoulders and announces, “Vitya should just be Vitya!” and cups his cheeks again, smushes a clumsy kiss to his forehead, and pats his hair. “Vitya is just so good and kind and funny and so, _so_ pretty. Such nice shoulders,” he sighs, rubbing them, “and pretty hair, and wow, such a nice chest?” Yuuri places both hands on his chest and pats him repeatedly, nodding. “So nice.”

Vitya goes from surprised to blushing, and then hugs Yuuri close, and the pang from sober Yuuri’s concern fades away. Vitya’s hugs fix everything.

“Yuuri is good and kind and funny and beautiful, too,” Vitya says into his neck. “I love Yuuri.”

“I love Vitya,” Yuuri says happily.

In the morning, sober Yuuri is probably going to panic about how tipsy Yuuri is so open about everything. But sober Yuuri is silly and doesn’t know what he’s talking about, because sober Yuuri would have said not to cuddle with Vitya and not to tell him he’s beautiful, and that would just be stupid. Vitya deserves to hear these things, and also to be hugged.

“Yuuri?” Vitya asks, and Yuuri hums in response. “Can we maybe move to the sofa? My legs are getting stiff.”

“Oh,” Yuuri says. “Okay!”

They go snuggle on the couch instead, and Vitya reads a bit of the book from earlier to him, and Yuuri lays his head on his chest and listens very intently, until he nods off and…

(In the morning, sober Yuuri wakes up on the couch, cozy under a blanket. If he realizes that he’s curled up against a suspiciously-Viktor-shaped hole, he doesn’t acknowledge it out loud.)

.

.

.

“So,” Chris says, one sunny afternoon as they sit in the library, just the two of them, as Viktor plays fetch with Makkachin outside. “You and Viktor, hm?”

Yuuri gives him a wide-eyed, startled look, helpless and caught, as the shadow of a thick log sails by outside the window, followed in a flash by Makkachin in a sharp dive. “I’m that transparent?”

Chris doesn’t laugh, to his credit. Instead he tilts his head to the side, considering, and finally nods once, twice. “Do you not want to be?”

Yuuri thinks, again, of Viktor’s curse, about the power of love, and about Viktor kissing his cheek just a few minutes ago, before heading out to play with Makkachin, and…

“I don’t know,” he admits, truthfully, and they leave it there for now.

.

.

.

Spring comes, and with it comes the thaw, and soon trickles of snowmelt feed into the headwaters of rivers that will cascade their way down to the sea. Yuuri stands near the bank of one such frigid stream, watching the sunlight play on the water, and knows—it is time.

They leave the valley early in the morning, with all the contents of Viktor’s tower packed neatly into a spelled satchel he slings over his shoulder. Makkachin comes too, of course, soaring free and happy through the clouds.

It’s cold, especially at night, but Makkachin makes that much less of an issue than it was on the way up into the mountains. Having a dragon around makes lots of things more convenient, Yuuri realizes, because with Makkachin’s heightened senses, nothing can sneak up on them, whether they keep a guard or not. _And_ she’s cozy and warm and doesn’t mind letting them use her wings as blankets.

Yuuri still keeps his family sword at his hip, though he has to admit he’s not very good with it. But having it makes him feel more secure, even though he knows in the event of a crisis he’d never be any good with it—he can keep a good grip and do some basics, sure, but past that? He’s useless—and besides, it’s something from home.

It only becomes relevant one day when he and Viktor are foraging for some nice mushrooms to put in their stew that evening, while Chris finishes setting up camp and watches over everything. They’re a little ways down from the path and in the woods, when they hear voices.

“Other travellers?” Viktor wonders aloud, peering through the evening gloom.

“Maybe,” Yuuri agrees, but something makes him nervous. It might be bandits—they’re near a main road now, in the foothills of the mountains, and this far outside a city it’s not unheard of for there to be an attack…

The voices grow a bit more distant, and Viktor shrugs it off and goes back to collecting chanterelles. Their baskets are nearing full, but Yuuri supposes it doesn’t really matter if they get too many. They can always cook them and eat them as a snack later, if they really don’t want to add so many to the stew.

Viktor has wandered a few yards away when it happens.

A twig snaps, and a gloved hand grabs him, covering his mouth and yanking him backwards, hard. Yuuri lets out a muffled cry as he drops his basket and mushrooms spill everywhere, and suddenly a cold, hard line is pressed under his chin.

“Move, and you’ll get it,” someone growls into his ear, because that’s a _dagger_ against his throat, holy shit, that’s a dagger, okay, fuck.

In front of him, he sees Viktor, elbowing his own attacker in the stomach and whirling away to put his back against a tree. When Viktor spots him, his eyes widen, and then—

“Hands up or your boyfriend here dies!” the man holding him barks. Viktor wavers, Yuuri tries to swallow the anxiety threatening to claw his throat raw and choke him, and the blade presses more firmly into his skin. “I said, hands _up—_ ”

In what can probably be regarded as a move made without much consideration of self-preservation, Yuuri stomps as hard as he can on his attacker’s foot.

The man stumbles and hisses a swear, and it gives him just enough of an opportunity to shove him backwards and duck away from the dagger, magic blazing up in him, raw and crackling with fear and desperation. That’s the thing about witchcraft—it gets _stronger_ if he’s afraid.

“Why, you little brat,” the man hisses, stomping forward with his face contorted in rage, but this time, Yuuri stands his ground. “I’ll kill you and loot your fucking corpse if you don’t wanna cooperate, don’t think I won’t!”

“Get away from me,” Yuuri warns, backing away with his hands raised defensively. There’s heat under his skin, like the fire of Makkachin’s love or the simmering warmth of the hot springs, and _he is going home, and this man will not take that from him._

“Or you’ll what?” The bandit sticks the dagger in his belt and grabs a mace, and behind Yuuri, he hears the _crunch_ of footsteps in the leaves as his partner comes forward, and then Viktor is there, suddenly, grabbing Yuuri’s sword from its sheath and standing at his back. There are more bandits, Yuuri realizes—at least five, total—and now his magic swells with protective rage. They won’t touch Viktor, they won’t, they _won’t._

“Don’t worry,” Viktor murmurs. “We’ll be alright.”

“Drop your weapon, pretty-boy,” one of the other bandits jeers. “Hand over your money and valuables and you can go without harm. Or… without much harm.”

“Get away from us,” Yuuri insists, one last time, but the circle of their attackers presses inward, all five of them confident that they have easy prey, and he’s terrified and he’s determined and he wants this _over_ and…

_Fwoom!_

His magic explodes outward in a ring of bright, white-hot flame, a towering wall that sears in a circle from his palms. It’s witchfire—it only burns that which he wants burned—and the trees, the ground, Viktor, the chanterelles, all of them go untouched.

The bandits, however, are not so lucky.

Two of them collapse, screaming, as another drops his red-hot weapons and just runs. The remaining two, screaming as well, grab their fallen comrades and stagger off into the woods, frightened away from prey that proved too difficult, and Yuuri takes a deep breath, and another, and another, because he’s never used his magic to hurt anyone before, and… and… and he can smell it, and he might be sick, and…

And Viktor’s arms are suddenly around him, holding him close. “Yuuri,” he breathes, kissing his hair. “Yuuri, oh, thank god you’re alright—did he hurt you? Let me see, hush, hush, it’s okay,” and he gently tips Yuuri’s chin up just as Yuuri realizes he’s whimpering. Viktor very gently traces the line on his throat where the dagger was, lips pressed together in disapproval, and in the wake of his finger comes soothing relief from the sting. Healing spell. Healing spell, right. Those exist.

“I—I burned them,” Yuuri whispers, clutching at Viktor’s chest, wide-eyed and horrified. “I, I hurt—I shouldn’t have—oh, god.”

He buries his face in Viktor’s shoulder and trembles, feeling sick. How had he let his fear and his anger just… just overwhelm him like that? How could he… he just… how…

“Oh, Yuuri,” Viktor murmurs, squeezing him tighter. He kisses his hair again, and Yuuri presses closer, craving comfort. What has he done? “Oh, Yuuri. You were protecting yourself. You were protecting _me._ It’s okay, Yuuri. It’s okay. You aren’t a bad person for defending us. Shh, shh shh. Let’s just go back to camp before they come back, okay?”

Yuuri nods against his shoulder, bites his lip so hard he tastes blood, and finally wrenches himself jerkily out of Viktor’s arms to grab his basket. Stiff and upset, he picks up most of the chanterelles he dropped, and Viktor helps him, one hand gathering chanterelles and the other resting gently on Yuuri’s shoulder.

When they get back to camp, he lets Viktor explain what happened and just burrows into Makkachin, who pats him like she did when he first met her and then wraps her forelegs around him and hums, low and soothing.

Viktor comes to him with stew, afterwards, and takes him into his arms again.

“It’s okay, Yuuri,” he murmurs, again, and Yuuri hesitates, looking up at him plaintively.

“Are you sure?”

Viktor nods and kisses his forehead. This time, Yuuri isn’t so deep in panic that he overlooks it, and the gesture fills him with fondness, makes him feel treasured and cared-for and cherished. It even makes him almost believe Viktor when he adds, “I’m positive.”

.

.

.

“Can’t sleep?”

Yuuri looks up at Chris’s voice, draws his cloak tighter around himself, and shakes his head. He tried, and he dreamed of witchfire. Vicchan licks his hand to get him to keep petting him.

“That’s okay.” Chris sits next to him and gazes out into the valley below, where off in the distance the capital of south province could be seen, when the sun was up. “You’ve had quite an eventful day.”

Yuuri’s voice surprises him when it comes out. “Does it ever get easier?”

“Fighting?” Chris shrugs. “At some point, it becomes reflex. Muscle memory. You just act, you don’t think.”

“But… afterwards,” Yuuri says quietly. “You think afterwards, right?”

Chris sighs, leaning on one arm. “Yuuri… You’re _not_ a fighter. That’s okay, too. You know—people like me, we take up our weapons so that hopefully, people like you won’t have to.”

Yuuri looks down into his lap, turmoil roiling through his stomach. _Is_ it okay, what he did? “But I hurt people today.”

“I’ve hurt people, too,” Chris says. “To protect those I care for, or to protect myself. It’s no different from what you did, Yuuri dear. They were threatening to kill you. You’re not wrong for fighting back.”

Yuuri sighs, and Vicchan wriggles in his lap, nuzzling close to him. Vicchan still loves and trusts him, at least, and he knows Vicchan has a good sense of intuition. “I guess so.”

Chris offers him a lopsided smile. “Yeah. Get some sleep, Yuuri; we have a long day ahead of us.”

Yuuri nods, gathering Vicchan up and turning back to his bedroll, next to Makkachin. “Thanks.”

Chris stands, too, and ruffles his hair fondly. “You’re gonna be alright,” he says. “You will.”

.

.

.

Both Viktor and Chris are rather protective of him for the next few days of travel; Chris cracks bad jokes and does his best to make him laugh, while Viktor wraps an arm around his shoulders every time they stop for lunch and just holds him. He takes his hand while walking, too, and smiles at him while Chris points out shapes in the clouds.

It’s late evening when they reach the inn at South City. It’s mostly empty, which would normally be the opposite of a problem in regards to finding rooming, but it’s _so_ empty that several rooms haven’t been cleaned to be used lately, and the three of them wind up in a suite of two rooms: the issue is that each only has a double bed. Chris immediately claims the right to sleeping single after giving Yuuri a significant look, and Viktor laughs brightly and says _oh well, they’ll have to share!_

Which is great and all, except Yuuri can feel his heart breaking with every little touch and light laugh and soft smile because tomorrow, tomorrow they’re going to see Sergei Stepanychev and after that he’s going home and he _can’t_ keep Viktor. And he’s going to miss him. He’s going to miss him and Makkachin so much, and Vicchan is too, and, hell, he’s going to miss Chris even though South City is a lot closer than the Queen’s palace, and…

Viktor finally goes to luxuriate in a bath—he takes the longest, so the other two of them agreed he should go last—and that’s when Chris corners Yuuri.

“So, Yuuri,” he drawls, settling down on the bed next to him. “Can I ask about you and Viktor again?”

Yuuri sighs, glum. “You can, but… it’s not going anywhere.”

Chris looks surprised. “Why do you say that? He cares about you a lot, you know.”

Pained, Yuuri drops his face into his hands. “I _know,_ and that’s the problem! I—Chris, I care about him too, it’s not that I don’t—he’s so important to me and I just, I really want him to be happy, but… I’m just a hedgewitch from nowhere. I’m going back home after this. I miss my family, and I’m happy to live there, but… I just… he’s a _prince._ I can’t ask him to choose between me and his family. I don’t—I don’t know if I managed to break his curse, but I think I did something, so I think he might be able to go home, and… I can’t ask him to make that choice! That would be so unfair!”

Chris looks pensive for a long moment, stroking his chin. Then he sighs, shakes his head, and takes Yuuri’s hand.

“Listen,” he says. “I’m saying this as your friend, Yuuri—you can’t be so self-centered.”

Yuuri jerks away. “I’m trying to think of him!”

Chris shakes his head. “You can’t make every choice for him just to coddle him, Yuuri. Maybe he doesn’t want to make you choose between your hometown and staying with him. Would you say that’s a fair decision, letting him make that choice for you?”

Yuuri stares at him, open-mouthed for a moment before he catches himself and swallows. He’s never thought of it that way. What _would_ he say, if Viktor asked him? If Viktor said _I want you, but I know you want to go home,_ and…

He doesn’t know what he’d say, but… but that’s the thing, right? That’s what Chris is getting at—he’s the one who should figure out what to say, just like Viktor should figure out what Viktor wants to say.

Shit.

He buries his face in his hands again and lets out a ragged breath. “This is hard.”

Without needing to look up, he can hear the grin on Chris’s face as he answers, “Well, handle things right and decisions won’t be the _only_ hard things in this bed.”

Yuuri throws a pillow at him.

Later, Viktor re-emerges, smelling like floral soap and with fluffy, spell-dried hair. He settles onto the bedside opposite from Yuuri and yawns, stretches, and flops down on his back, smiling. “Hi, Yuuri.”

“Hi,” Yuuri says, unable to resist smiling back at him. Viktor reaches for his hand and takes it, squeezes it, and presses it to his warm cheek, and Yuuri tries not to blush. Viktor is so… sweet? Caring? Tender? All of the above? And the truth of what Chris said is abundantly clear; Yuuri feels so, so cherished.

“How are you feeling?” Viktor rubs his thumb over his knuckles. “I just realized I haven’t asked for a while.”

“I’m alright,” Yuuri says, heart pounding, because if it’s really an option that he tells Viktor out loud, in words, how much he means to him and how much he doesn’t want tomorrow to just be the end… he has to say it.

He could say it, he _should_ say it, he… he…

He tugs the corner of the blanket down instead. “We, um. We should get in bed?”

“True,” Viktor says, letting go of his hand. “Big day tomorrow, and all that.”

Yuuri’s stomach flip-flops. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow.

Before his courage can desert him, he slips beneath the covers and snuggles close to Viktor’s side, laying his head on his chest. Viktor, if he’s surprised, doesn’t show it; he wraps his arm around Yuuri’s shoulders and tangles his fingers in his hair and sighs.

Here it is. It’s now or never.

Yuuri takes a deep breath and says, very quietly, “I don’t want to let go of you.”

Viktor hums. “I’m glad. Because I have no intentions of letting go of you, either.”

Yuuri’s world tilts.

“Wait,” he says, eyes opening wide as he lifts his chin, trying to look up at Viktor. “Wait, you weren’t planning to go back home to see your family after tomorrow? Or—or am I coming?”

Viktor looks startled. “I—you thought I was going to leave you?” he asks, and he sounds almost upset, and Yuuri doesn’t know what to _do_ so he just clings to him and wraps a leg around him too, feeling the warmth of his body and clutching him tight.

“I don’t know what I thought,” he confesses into Viktor’s chest. “I thought… of course you’d want to go back to them as soon as you could? And it made sense, I mean, I’ve been missing my family and…”

He trails off as Viktor’s hand slides down, elegant fingers brushing his cheek, and cups his jaw.

“Yuuri,” Viktor murmurs, thumb stroking his cheek slowly, rhythmically, hypnotically. “Yuuri, my darling.”

Yuuri’s breath catches in his chest as his heart leaps, wonders, and _soars._

“I haven’t seen my family in over five years,” he says, and the pad of his thumb caresses Yuuri’s lower lip, and Viktor shifts, scooting down until they’re face-to-face, forehead-to-forehead, and Yuuri could lose himself in the depth of those blue, blue eyes. “I’m pretty sure I’m still cursed, too. So I thought I’d go with you… be with you, meet your family you’ve told me so much about, and then, after that, if I can, go see what the palace is like these days. I do want to be with you, if you’ll have me.”

“Oh,” Yuuri breathes, reaching up and touching Viktor’s cheek too, his chest about to burst from affection and relief and joy and a hundred thousand other things.

“Oh,” Viktor agrees, smiling softly. Fondness rises up and crashes over Yuuri like the waves on the shore in Hasetsu.

“I love you,” he adds, and then he kisses him, kisses him like he’s been wanting to for so long. Viktor’s lips are impossibly soft, and he makes a sweet little sound of delight as Yuuri kisses him, and it’s over far too fast because Viktor gasps and jerks back again.

“Yuuri,” he whispers, pulling him closer. “Yuuri, my lovely Yuuri, what did you do?”

“I… kissed you?” Yuuri blinks, cheeks flushing. “Should—should I not have, I’m sorry—”

Viktor kisses him again, very tiny and brief, and smiles a gorgeous, breathtaking smile. “You have my express permission to kiss me as much as you like, as often as you like,” he murmurs, and pecks his lips again, just for good measure.

“Oh,” Yuuri sighs with relief, smiling too, and Viktor nuzzles his nose. “Then…?”

Viktor pecks his lips again, and again, and finally says, “You did something to the curse again, just now. I don’t know what, but I _felt_ it. It was like… it popped?”

Yuuri’s eyes go wide. He thinks he knows what that means, but—

Viktor must reach the same conclusion, because he pulls him into another deep kiss, holding him tight and kissing him hard. He kisses him over and over again, until Yuuri is breathless and flushed from the heat of it, their hands clutching at each other as they gasp between kisses and more kisses, until Viktor starts to break into helpless laughter and Yuuri follows, burying his face in his neck and giggling at the thrills zooming up and down his spine.

“Wow,” Viktor breathes, and nuzzles his hair. “ _Wow.”_

Yuuri reaches up and touches his cheek, overwhelmed by butterflies of fondness when Viktor nuzzles his face into his palm, and kisses his neck. They’re entangled so close, heads to feet, and Yuuri feels so _warm,_ inside and out. “Yeah.”

Viktor caresses his hair and sighs dreamily, nuzzling another kiss into it. “I can’t believe someone with a heart and soul as wonderful as you came to love me,” he sighs. “Oh, Yuuri, I love you. Thank you. You’ve… you’ve given me my own life back.”

“I—Vitya, I love you too, but really, I didn’t do all that much,” Yuuri protests, squirming in his arms, and Viktor hugs him tighter.

“Not true,” he says. “You are the reason I realized that cursed or not, I could still enjoy my life and be myself, without having to hide from the world. You’re amazing.” He kisses Yuuri’s forehead, then tips his chin up and kisses his lips again, soft and gentle this time, and then he wrinkles his nose and laughs softly. “I’m a very lucky man, that I get to kiss you so many times in one night.”

Yuuri squeaks and laughs, face burning. “I think I’m the lucky one, actually!”

Viktor laughs again and pulls him close, and he willingly melts into his arms. “Maybe we’re both lucky.”

“Maybe so,” Yuuri agrees, and kisses him again.

.

.

.

“Chriiiiis-toooophe!” Viktor sings, bright and early in the morning as he waltzes to the adjoining door. Yuuri pulls the blanket up to his chin and groans. Yes, it’s dawn, but he hasn’t slept in an actual bed in _days._ Can’t they just enjoy this?

“Yes, Viktor?” comes the answer, as Chris opens the door and raises an eyebrow. He’s also more awake than he should be. Why is Yuuri the only one here with a modicum of common sense?

Viktor beams. “Guess who I spent like half an hour making out with last niiiiight!”

Yuuri pulls the blanket over his head.

.

.

.

Eventually he’s forced to get up, although Viktor does sweeten the deal by peppering his face with kisses as he shuffles around and gets ready. But all too soon, it’s midmorning, and the moment of truth has arrived:

Yuuri is back in front of the gates to Stepanychev’s manor.

This time, though, he’s not alone.

“I’d like an audience with Lord Stepanychev,” he says to one of the guards, hoping that they won’t recognize him, and also that they’ve forgotten that Stepanychev ordered them to throw him in a cell last time he was here. “It’s important, please—I’ve done something he asked, and I’m here to let him know it’s, um, been… done.”

As the guards discuss this among themselves, Viktor, dressed in an innocently drab cloak and standing beside him, stifles a laugh. He places his hand on the small of Yuuri’s back, thumb rubbing gentle circles to soothe him if he’s nervous, and Yuuri kind of wants to put this entire thing on hold and kiss him some more because he’s just so _sweet_.

Oh, god, is he gonna end up being obnoxiously into public displays of affection? He never wanted to be one of those people when he was younger…

The guards finish their deliberation and nod. “You may enter. Your companions, however…”

One of them pauses. “Wait. _Christophe Giacometti?”_

“Oh, dear,” Chris says drolly. “Yes, yours truly, Mongo. I don’t suppose you’re planning to arrest me, are you?”

The two of them—Mongo? and his companion—exchange glances, clearly uncertain. “Uh, well… technically we’re supposed to, but… most of us kinda really miss you, so…”

“We saw nothing,” Mongo says. “And _please,_ sir, do me a favor and forget about that nickname. I was drunk.”

Chris grins and steps forward, giving the guard a one-armed hug and laughing. “Oh, I know you were! That’s what makes it all the funnier. Thank you both, very kindly. I think after today there will be some changes in management around the place, too, so…” He shrugs, winks, and pivots away, back to Yuuri and Viktor. “Who knows what opportunity the day could bring?”

“That sounds ominous,” Not-Mongo mutters. Mongo elbows him.

“You three may pass,” Mongo says, and opens the gate.

Once again, they’re led to a receiving room, this time by a portly butler who takes one glance at Chris (who places a finger to his lips and winks) and turns stiff and pale with fear. Yuuri gives Chris an odd look, while Viktor just squeezes his hand. When they’re seated, Viktor glances around at the finery and sniffs delicately, disapproving.

“This amount of gold leaf is just _tacky,_ ” he sighs. “And this upholstery with these rugs? Whoever decorated this place has no sense of style.”

“Our _dear_ Lord Stepanychev wanted to make sure his guests would know that he’s rich,” Chris sighs, shaking his head.

“Clearly,” Viktor snorts. “I’m surprised nobody ever taugt him that real power doesn’t _need_ to be demonstratively put on display. It exists without such… gaudy embellishments.”

Yuuri shifts awkwardly. “Well… when you’re from a small village and you don’t know better, it looks fancy?”

Viktor laughs and pulls him close to press a quick kiss to his temple. “Oh, Yuuri, your little village is going to be absolutely charming, I know it. My issue with this place is that it’s trying to emulate something it clearly is _not.”_

Before Yuuri can respond to that, the door opens, and Lord Stepanychev himself enters. He takes one look at Yuuri, and from the look on his face, Yuuri knows he hasn’t forgotten him, even if the guards have.

_“You,”_ he rages. “How _dare_ you show your face here again, you slimy minx! I’ll have you _skinned alive_ for this impudence—”

“That’s quite enough,” Viktor cuts in, his voice cold and imperious enough to stop Stepanychev in his tracks. “Speaking in anger to someone lower in station than you is quite the step down. How inelegant… Lord Stepankov, was it?”

“It’s _Stepanychev,_ ” Stepanychev hisses. “And who the hell do you think you are, to try and lecture me against putting this filth in his proper place? He has no respect for his betters—”

Viktor interrupts again by dropping the hood of his cloak and letting his starlight hair—the mark of the Royal House—cascade down around his shoulders as he stares Stepanychev dead in the eyes. “You know exactly who I am,” he says, deadly calm. “You sent this man to bring me here to you, personally, to tell you that you are unfit to rule, and in less than five minutes of an audience, you’ve demonstrated it to me _quite_ clearly. I suppose I should be thankful that you haven’t wasted more of my time, but given that you already pushed someone to the brink of enough desperation that I had to come here in person…”

Stepanychev has gone deadly pale, his face ashen as he stumbles back and falls into one of his overstuffed armchairs. Chris lets out a bark of undisguised laughter, and Stepanychev is so rattled that he doesn’t even yell about it. The guards posted near the doors exchange wide-eyed looks.

“Your—Your Highness,” Stepanychev wheezes. “I don’t know what the peasant vermin has told you, but I can assure you, sir, it is all lies, Your Highness! Please understand, he caused quite a disturbance when he last came here, Your Highness—”

“It’s Your _Royal_ Highness, technically,” Viktor cuts in coolly. “Sergei Stepanychev, you are hereby relieved of power in this and all other posts in this kingdom, by my decree. If ever you try to climb the ranks of courts or hierarchies, you will be outlawed, if not arrested on the spot—I leave the amount of leniency to those around you at the time.”

“Y-Your Royal Highness, please, I beg you to reconsider,” Stepanychev begs, grovelling. Viktor looks at him impassively.

“Christophe Giacometti,” he says instead. “I appoint you interim governor of South Province, should you accept the position. You will be tasked with cleaning up the mess that this pitiful fool made. Are you willing to serve?”

Chris stands and bows. “I am.”

Viktor smiles.

“Good,” he says, and takes Yuuri’s hand and sweeps from the room, while Chris lingers to talk to the guards. “The manor will know within the hour, and the province within days. Your friend will be able to come home soon, darling.”

Yuuri squeezes his hand and then stops walking to fling his arms around him, needing to hold him, needing to be held. It was a very short audience and he didn’t even do anything, but his heart is still pounding, and he just wants to sink into Viktor’s embrace for an hour or two. Viktor catches him and squeezes tight, letting out a slow breath, and Yuuri clings to him for several heartbeats.

“Thank you,” he mumbles into his shoulder, rubbing his back. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Viktor kisses his hair. “Anything for you, dearest. Are you alright?”

Yuuri hesitates, presses closer to him, and nods. “I think so. I… I just… is it okay for you to have done that before we took you back to your mother? Is it—will you be in trouble? Should we—”

Viktor chuckles, his voice warm and gentle in all the ways it wasn’t in the receiving room, and he kisses Yuuri’s forehead, melting away the fears. “Don’t worry. I’ve been missing, but that doesn’t mean I’m no longer her son. Though I doubt I’m still Crown Prince—goodness, I hope not—I am still in the royal family, darling. Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay,” Yuuri says, relieved, and sinks back into his arms.

When they reach the courtyard, it’s not to a sight that Yuuri expected: Stepanychev is standing in front of a group of his former guards, all of whom look uncomfortable and unwilling. As they approach, he realizes what Stepanychev wants—

“—all three of them in prison, now! They’re trying to destabilize our government and—”

“Oh, dear,” Viktor sighs, shaking his head and tapping a finger to his lips. His frosty smile is back in place, though his arm is still around Yuuri’s waist, and something about him exudes authority despite his nondescript clothing. “This sounds suspiciously like treason! That would be very unfortunate, wouldn’t it? If I had to arrest you for treason instead of just exiling you from positions of power…”

Stepanychev looks horrified and furious for a moment. Then he abruptly waves an arm—casting a spell, _oh shit_ —and one of the logs forming the stockade rips itself out of the ground, pointed tip aimed right at Viktor (or possibly at Yuuri), and starts to fly.

A shadow passes over them.

Makkachin crashes into the log in midair, catching it in her forepaws and breaking it in two as she drops out of the sky, growling. Her tail lashes back and forth menacingly, and she advances on Stepanychev with pupils narrowed to slits.

Stepanychev blanches. “What the hell is this thing—”

“She’s a very nice girl, actually,” Viktor interrupts. “Don’t speak about her that way.”

“—doing here, what the fuck—”

Makkachin bites his arm.

“Makkachin!” Yuuri yelps. “Down, girl, it’s okay—”

“Well!” Viktor says brightly. He claps his hands as Stepanychev screams and the guards scatter back from Makkachin, casts a quick enhancement spell to magnify his voice, and announces, “Wow, this is exciting. Guards, I don’t think I need to explain who I am? Restrain that man and meet me in the main hall in thirty minutes. We have some cleanup to do.”

.

.

.

Yuuri’s heart is in his throat as they approach the final bend in the road. Just over the crest of this shallow hill is Hasetsu. It’s been about a year since he left home, and god, it feels so good to smell the familiar sea breeze, and…

“Excited to be back?” Viktor rubs the back of his hand, swinging their arms between them, and Yuuri laughs softly.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ve… god, I didn’t realize just how much I missed it,” he admits, squeezing his hand back. Vicchan yips excitedly from somewhere overhead—Makkachin has taken quite the liking to him, to the point that Viktor fashioned a harness out of a coat cut into strips and some spells, and now they go flying together—and Yuuri quickens his pace.

As they round the bend and reach the top of the hill, Hasetsu opens up, lying in the sleepy seaside valley spread out below them, and Yuuri’s eyes suddenly fill with tears at how _familiar_ it is. Those are the streets he’s walked all his life, there is the seaside he played on as a child, and there, nestled cozily against the hills where the hot springs steam, is Yu-topia Akatsuki.

He’s _home._

“Look,” he says, taking Viktor’s hand and guiding it to point to the inn. “Do you see that building? Near the edge of town?”

Viktor nods. His smile is full of warmth and a tinge of wistful fondness, and as he gazes out over Hasetsu, Yuuri can’t help but wonder what _he_ sees. To Yuuri, this is just… home. That’s the only way to describe it; the narrow streets and the open-air markets and the gardens and the old castle on the hill are all _home._ To Viktor, is this just another tiny town, just another piece of the middle of nowhere tucked away in East Province? Or is it something else, as lovely as it is to Yuuri?

“Is that home?” Viktor asks, and Yuuri’s heart swells.

“Yeah,” he says, nodding, and then he pulls his prince, his friend, his darling, into his arms and squeezes him tight. “Yeah. I’m bringing you home. Come on.”

.

.

.

As soon as he enters town, a cry goes out, spreading like wildfire— _it’s Yuuri, he’s not dead, Yuuri is home, it’s Yuuri, he’s back_ —and to his shock, he ends up accosted by almost the entire village at some point or another, until someone must have run to the inn and told his family, because suddenly Mari bursts out of the crowd and sees him and lets out a huge gasp.

“Yuuri!” she wails, and then he’s in her arms, pressed in the tightest hug she’s ever given him as she ruffles his hair and wipes at her eyes and hugs him again, picking him up and twirling him around as he yelps in mild protest. Her apron smells like the spices in the kitchen, and her arms feel as safe as they always have, and he’s _home home home._

“Hi,” he mumbles, sniffling into her shoulder. “Hi, sorry I took so long. I’m here now.”

“Oh, Yuuri,” she sighs, finally letting go of him and holding him at arm’s length, just looking at him for several long moments. “I’m so glad, god, we’ve been so worried…”

“Who’s your friend?” someone asks—it’s old Hitoshi, one of their neighbors, he used to babysit Yuuri whenever everyone else was busy with rush hours—and Yuuri laughs, taking Viktor’s arm and drawing him forward.

“Everyone,” he says, “this is Viktor. Please be good to him! He’s very important to me, and he’s come a long way to come home with me.”

Nobody comments on the silver, starlight hair. Nobody comments on the way he holds himself, the fact that he’s the missing prince, or the fact that Yuuri was tasked with _finding_ the missing prince. Instead, there’s a moment of silence, and then the crowd erupts in cheers and questions:

“Yuuri! You mean you ran off for a year and found yourself a pretty foreign man?”

“Oh! Viktor is your boyfriend, Yuuri? How long have you been together?!”

“Yuuri! You have to tell us everything, you know! How did you meet him? Where have you _been?”_

“Welcome to Hasetsu, Viktor! We hope you feel welcome!”

_“YUURI YOU ABSOLUTE FUCKING PEANUT HEAD—”_

This last one makes Yuuri whip around just in time to get tackled to the ground by his best friend, none other than Phichit Chulanont himself, who has the good grace to cushion his head at least but still lands squarely on top of him and crushes the breath from his lungs. He wheezes and then groans, while Phichit sits up and then yanks him into a fierce hug, definitely crying.

“Phichit!” he greets breathlessly, while Phichit pounds his back and furiously pats his head and his face and his shoulders. “Hi—oof—hi, it’s good to see you, too—”

“I thought you _died!”_ Phichit wails. “Don’t you ever do something like this again, you hear me, don’t you _ever_ disappear on me like that—you hear me, Katsuki? Or I will _personally_ —god, I don’t even know, but I’ll, I’ll, I’ll think of something—”

“I did it,” Yuuri interrupts, hugging him as Viktor and Mari laugh. “I did it, you know, your family can go back home now, and…”

“I don’t even _care_ right now,” Phichit cries. “You’re back, thank god, I was so, so scared, I, I…”

“I’m sorry I took so long,” Yuuri says, rubbing his back. “But everything is okay now, so…”

A huge shadow flits over the crowd, and Yuuri has just enough time to think _oh no_ before someone screams, _“Dragon!”_ , and Makkachin drops out of the sky.

“Oh, dear,” Viktor sighs, sounding mildly inconvenienced as people scream and scatter. Makkachin snorts and stares around, defensive but not about to attack, luckily. “No—no, listen, everyone, she’s friendly, I promise! Makka, stop scaring people—hush! Yuuri is _fine,_ people are just very happy,” he adds as she advances on Phichit, who is still sitting on Yuuri, now frozen and wide-eyed.

“You made friends with a dragon?” he breathes.

“Um, yeah?” Yuuri extricates himself quickly, scrambling to his feet, and goes over to her, reaching out. Makkachin slowly, slowly drops her defensive stance, lowering her head to butt it into his hand, and lets him scratch under her chin and then caress her brow ridges as usual. “Easy, girl. I’m okay, it’s okay!” he assures, rubbing her nose. “These are all friends.”

“Yuuri,” Mari says from behind him. “What the _fuck_ have you been up to.”

“Um,” Yuuri says. “Long story?”

.

.

.

When Yuuri’s parents are done crying, which takes a little while, and then when Yuuri is done crying, which takes a little while longer, they usher Viktor and Yuuri into the hot springs and find that Makkachin has already taken up residence in the largest pool she can find. Unfortunately, it still is not quite large enough for her. She’s doing her best to make it work, curling her tail up very primly and delicately squeezing all four legs into the water, and blinks innocently at Yuuri when he has to sit down on the ground because he’s laughing so hard.

“I think we might need to make a bigger spring somehow. Maybe we can spell that one larger,” Hiroko sighs when Yuuri grabs a robe and pops back inside to mention that the largest one of the pools is not available, and she’s taking this whole thing so well that he can’t help but hug her.

“Thank you, Okaa-san,” he mumbles, and she pats his back and tugs him down to kiss his cheek.

“My tall baby boy,” she laughs, ruffling his hair, and he stands back up and laughs back. “I’m glad you’re home. Go rest and relax now, okay? You’ve earned it.”

“Just please don’t fuck in the springs,” Mari calls from the kitchen. “I really don’t wanna have to clean that up—”

_“Mari!”_ he screeches, beet red, and she cackles.

Yuuri makes his escape, goes back out to the spring where he left Viktor, and slips into the water next to him; immediately, Viktor wraps his arm around his shoulders and pulls him close. Yuuri hums happily and leans into him, tucking his head into the crook of his neck.

“Ah… sorry,” he says. “I know meeting everyone was probably overwhelming. How are you?”

Viktor positively glows. “Overwhelming? Oh, Yuuri, your family is _delightful!_ And this place is so _cute!_ I never realized how charming it would be when you told me about it. And these springs are positively divine. Plus, you see how happy Makka is here! She loves it! We absolutely have to get Chris to visit sometime, too, because you know, he’d have a _great_ time—”

“If you’re about to say it’s because nobody wears clothes in the springs, that’s true, yes, but there’s no sex back here,” Yuuri says wryly. “Like, no. If he _did_ try anything I’d make him clean the place up himself.”

Viktor considers that. “So, if I agreed to clean—”

_“NO,”_ Yuuri squeaks, entirely too loudly, and Viktor bursts into laughter.

~

Yuuri gives Vicchan a nice bath that evening, because Vicchan deserves to be squeaky-clean and cozy and fluffy now that they’re home, and Vicchan wriggles in delight and splashes around until Yuuri is frankly sure he’s wearing the entire contents of the tub, all in his shirt.

From the next room over, his mother lets out a big delighted _whoop_ , and his father and Mari and Phichit all laugh. Vicchan licks his elbow.

“I wonder what they’re all doing,” he says, catching his slippery dog around the middle and lifting him back to the tub as he tries to clamber into his lap. “No, you’re _soapy,_ Vicchan, you need to _rinse. Then_ I can cuddle you.”

Vicchan wags his tail and whuffs.

Eventually, Yuuri gets a drying charm on a towel and gets Vicchan back to his fluffy self, swaps it out for a thin blanket with a light heating charm, and wraps his puppy up like a baby. Vicchan loves being swaddled up after baths, and he snuggles cozily into Yuuri’s arms as he picks him up, sets him against his chest, and finally leaves the bathroom to go see what Viktor has done with his family.

When he enters the common room, all of the tables have been pushed to the side, and Viktor is twirling his mother through the room in a wild and energetic dance, both of them laughing brightly. Phichit is clapping along and many of the patrons are cheering, while Mari serves drinks to everyone settled around the perimeter of the room with an indulgent grin.

“Yuuri!” his father calls, and Yuuri wanders over to him, Vicchan snuffling in his arms and wiggling contentedly. Toshiya claps him on the shoulder and smiles broadly. “Your Prince Nikiforov is a fine man.”

“Oh—” Yuuri blushes ( _his_ Prince Nikiforov?) and looks down at Vicchan, a little flustered, but looks back up and nods, smiling bashfully. “He is.”

“He asked your mother and me for our official permission to court you while you were taking care of the puppy,” Toshiya adds, laughing. “So polite and courteous! Of course we said yes. Are you too tired, or are you going to tell us the story tonight? It sounds like you’ve had a wild time out there, haven’t you!”

Yuuri thinks about snowstorms weathered in the tower while Viktor played with Vicchan and Chris knitted hats, and about climbing down the mountain and bandits in the forest, and about all the work that went into starting the cleanup process after Stepanychev got ousted. It _has_ been a lot.

“Yeah,” he agrees, rubbing Vicchan’s head. “I’m fine, I’m not too tired yet.”

“Good, good! Glad to hear it.” Toshiya claps his back, squeezes his shoulder fondly, and gives him a brief half-hug, careful not to squish Vicchan. “I’m glad you’re home, Yuuri. We’ve missed you.”

Yuuri leans against his side and watches Viktor twirl his mother around a corner. She misses a step and trips, letting out a whoop of laughter again when Viktor catches her and improvises a flourish to make it seem intentional, and everyone watching claps.

“I’m glad to be home, too,” he says, and smiles.

.

.

.

.

.

.

_Epilogue._

Yuuri always thought there would be trumpets.

Trumpets and many carriages and a big, bold entourage, and also maybe warning? At least a little warning. Or preferably a lot of it.

Instead, what he gets is that he walks downstairs, bleary-eyed and not-quite-awake as Viktor continues snoozing in their bed, and finds his mother sitting at the kitchen table having tea and biscuits with _the fucking Queen._

“Um,” he manages, after making a great first impression by walking directly into the countertop in shock. “I. Uh. Hi. I should leave? I should. Go back to bed—”

Queen Vasilisa Nikiforova, who is the actual fucking queen of this entire country, laughs. Her voice is brazen and merry, and she waves a hand that all but commands him not to do that, even though he’s a bumbling idiot who’s still in his pajamas and who also just got out of bed with her son, who has been missing for almost six years, and who is still asleep upstairs because he stayed up _way_ too late playing with Makkachin, and—

“Be at ease, Yuuri,” she says. “We’re all friends here, I think. Is Vitya still asleep?”

“I, um, y-yes, Your Majesty?” Yuuri glances desperately to his mother and wonders if his face screams _help!!! help!!! help!!!_ as loudly as his brain is.

Apparently not, because instead of letting him run away, she smiles at him and gestures to the spot next to her. “You must be hungry, right? Sit down, eat with us, dear!”

“Oh, um, okay,” Yuuri says, hoping desperately for Viktor to wake up and come downstairs Right Now just so that he won’t have to sit between his mother and the Queen. The Queen, who is in his kitchen, casually sipping rose black tea with his mother.

Right.

This is fine. This is just his life. Right. Okay.

“Did you rest well?” The Actual Real-Life Queen asks, smiling gently at him. Her eyes are so sharp even though she’s smiling that Yuuri is pretty sure she could kill him faster than Makkachin. Why is she so imposing?

“I did,” he manages. “Um. Yes. How was, uh… how was your trip? Y-Your Majesty!”

“Please,” she laughs, brushing a thick silvery-pale braid over her shoulder. Her hair is a little more white than Viktor’s, a warmer silver, but their resemblance is unmistakeable; they have the same blue eyes, the same sharp jaw, and the same aura of raw power. The difference is just that Viktor also hugs Yuuri a lot and laughs and coos over dogs, so he’s not scary, but his mother, on the other hand… “Just call me Vasilisa. My son intends to marry you, from what I heard in your mother’s letter; if we’re to be family, there’s no need to be so formal.”

Yuuri’s world tilts, flips upside down, and does some cool aerial tricks while it’s up there. It’s a good thing he’s sitting down. “Oh.”

His mother wrote to the Queen and mentioned that Viktor wants to marry him.

Wait, Viktor wants to _marry him?_

Holy shit.

“And my travels were fine, thank you for asking,” she adds. Her voice is low and rich and full, and now that he’s looking, he can see a trace of Viktor’s smile in her face, too. “I hear you and Vitya had quite the adventure recently, what with all the upheaval in South Province last summer.”

“Yes,” Yuuri nods, trying not to squirm under the weight of her gaze. “It was, ah, interesting?”

“You’ll have to tell me all about it,” she says, smiling. “It’s nearly noon—what _is_ that boy doing still asleep?”

“He stayed up very late playing fetch with the dragon,” Yuuri blurts out, and then claps a hand over his mouth. “I mean—”

The Queen lets out a very undignified snort that turns into another laugh, merry and real. “That _does_ sound like something he would do,” she says dryly. “So he hasn’t changed so much, I see.”

Something in her face softens, and to Yuuri’s complete shock, his mother leans over and lays a hand over the Queen’s. The Queen smiles gratefully at her.

“I can, um. I can go get him,” he says, awkwardly sipping his tea. “I’m sure—I’m sure you’d like to see him, Your Ma—”

“Vasilisa,” the Queen cuts in gently.

“Va… Vasilisa,” Yuuri stammers, almost certain that lightning will come from the heavens and strike him down for being so familiar with the Queen.

It does not.

“And if you don’t mind, that would be nice,” she adds, “but please, finish your breakfast first. It’s quite alright to wait—I’m afraid seeing him may or may not be a little, ah, difficult for both of us, but I very much would like to.”

Yuuri drinks some more tea, takes a moment to eat a little, and then timidly asks, “Do you mean because of, um… the curse?”

Queen Vasilisa takes a sharp breath. “So he told you about that?”

Yuuri nods hesitantly. “Um… yes, but I think… I _might_ have broken it?”

Queen Vasilisa looks absolutely shocked.

Then she leans forward and clasps Yuuri’s hand in both of her own. “Please,” she says urgently. “Tell me everything.”

.

.

.

He’s just managed to get through the first half of the story, about scrying for Viktor and getting through his wards because of what they later realized was magical intent—Yuuri wasn’t searching for Viktor to find him and bring him home, he was searching for Viktor to ask for his help, and that combined with his potential for love (the antidote to the curse) made the wards let him through, to help Viktor as Viktor helped him—when footsteps sound on the stairs.

Viktor sleepily enters the kitchen, drops a kiss to Yuuri’s head as he shuffles past and mumbles “G’morning,” as he gets a teacup from the cabinet, and Yuuri wordlessly stares at him and lets out a tiny squeak.

Viktor pauses.

“Wait,” he says, slowly turning around. “Wait…”

A smile blooms across Queen Vasilisa’s face—the curse _is_ gone, Yuuri realizes. They’re in the same room, and she’s fine—as she lifts a hand in greeting. “Good morning, Vitya.”

_“Mama,”_ Viktor gasps, and the cup falls from his hand as he flings himself into her arms.

He ends up kneeling, face in her lap as she pets his hair, and Yuuri glances away to give them both some privacy as Viktor cries softly. The moment is utterly ruined, however, by a loud _thud_ and some stomping, and then the kitchen door is roughly shoved open and an angry teenager with silvery-gold hair (Prince Plisetsky, Yuuri realizes) storms into the room.

“Where the fuck is Viktor—”

“Yurio,” Mari says, appearing behind him. “No yelling in this side of the house. You’ll wake the guests.”

“That’s not my _name!”_

“Yura,” Queen Vasilisa says, as Viktor lifts his head and wipes his cheeks, smiling so hard he’s almost glowing, “be polite to our hosts. I’ve taught you better than this.”

Yurio? Yura? clamps his mouth shut and nods stiffly, looking chastised. “Yes, aunt.” He looks at Viktor then, eyes growing wide and watery, and opens his mouth, closes it again, and shakes his head as if he doesn’t know what to say.

“Hi,” Viktor says from the floor, grinning. “Long time no see, Yurochka. You’ve grown a lot…”

“I’ll kick you,” Yura threatens, and tackles him.

Yuuri lets out a deep breath.

So the royal family is congregated in his kitchen. So what? There’s a dragon in the hot springs! His life is just weird now. That’s fine. This is fine.

Queen Vasilisa laughs brightly and wipes her eyes, patting both Viktor and Yura’s heads. “Vitya,” she says. “Are you coming home with me?”

Yuuri’s heart suddenly lurches as all the levity drains from his face. Viktor is going to leave. Viktor is going to leave, Viktor is going to leave—

Viktor hesitates.

“Mama,” he says, sobering. “I’d—I’ve missed you so much, and I’d love to visit I think, but… after this long, I don’t think—I don’t want to return to court. Yura’s been preparing to take the throne for so long at this point, it would upset things too much if I were to return anyway, and…” He takes a breath, releases it, and fires that heartbreakingly gorgeous smile right at Yuuri, the one that always makes him melt into a pile of goo. “And I’m happy here.”

Queen Vasilisa looks a bit sad, but she nods. “I understand, dear,” she says. “We’ll visit more often, too, then. And you are always welcome to bring your Yuuri to court—”

“What?” Yura objects.

“Not you,” Viktor laughs. “My Yuuri is that one,” and he points to Yuuri, who waves tentatively at the angry prince, warm and fuzzy inside because Viktor just called him his Yuuri. “You’re Yura. Yurochka. Or what was it Mari called you? Yurio?”

“I’m _going_ to kick you!”

Mari laughs. Yuuri blinks. There are a lot of people in the kitchen now, and it’s a little overwhelming.

“You should take some time and catch up, all of you,” Hiroko says, refilling the pot with water and adding another heating charm to boil it. “Yuuri, Mari, both of you be dears and start getting the dining hall ready for lunch, will you?”

“Yes, Okaa-san,” Yuuri says quickly as Mari nods, and the two of them leave the kitchen.

Mari pauses, bumps his hip as they walk, and raises an eyebrow. “You okay, kiddo?”

“Ah, yeah,” Yuuri says sheepishly. “Just a little shellshocked. Wow. When did they get here?”

“About an hour ago,” she says. “I would’ve woken you, but Otou-san said to let you both sleep.”

“Oh.” Together, they start to move a table from its position by the wall back to the middle of the room, followed by cushions to place around it. “Yeah… okay. How long are they staying?”

“Until tomorrow morning,” Mari says. “Queen can’t take long vacations and all that.”

“Right.” Yuuri nods.

“Hey,” Mari says again, catching him halfway to the stack of cushions. “You sure you’re okay?”

Yuuri nods again, smiling more genuinely. There’s a royal family in his kitchen, a dragon in the back yard, and a curse no longer plaguing the man he loves. Is it all a bit weird? Maybe so. Can he handle it?

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m fine.”

And he really, really is.

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ)!!! give it a listen its a bop


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